imageanchor="1" rel="nofollow" title="Doubt can eat away at the best of
competitors">
title="Doubt can eat away at the best of competitors"
/>
This midnight-spout had almost
grown a forgotten thing, when, some days after, lo! at the same silent
hour, it was again announced: again it was descried by all; but upon
making sail to overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never
been. And so it served us night after night, till no one heeded it but to
wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight,
as the case might be; disappearing again for one whole day, or two days,
or three; and somehow seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing
still further and further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever
alluring us on.
Nor with the immemorial
superstition of their race, and in accordance with the preternaturalness,
as it seemed, which in many things invested the Pequod, were there wanting
some of the seamen who swore that whenever and wherever descried; at
however remote times, or in however far apart latitudes and longitudes,
that unnearable spout was cast by one self-same whale; and that whale,
Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at
this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and
on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at
last in the remotest and most savage seas.
These
temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous potency
from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath all its
blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm, as for days
and days we voyaged along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely mild, that
all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of
life before our urn-like prow.
[pgallery] [img
alt="fashion"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEfSRy4mWNVUpWk3Cur3QM3YZn5zHyRV1N964r2p-ewfO2yCDQIdGkPI7kCtlIx06IcvjhDi6WiMivrdWcZ31EyvO1YYDlJAdvhWYE5PvsTO0CPupmhRfVZV-xew13AVt-HV7g4VqmPTHE/s300/fashion4-700x357.jpg"][/img]
[img alt="Wedding"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcaztNTxBrmwAc5QV3kvy_NFf7bBAQNqsmzTkD-bKrAiLZsR6bddE9HW9I6SO1McgJPksJb4b3e9ux3rEhgWdbx69KiTvmvTpBcV6jL9Dnn_vG09_4V6drZxAL0y48V0mndIqsdfwd7Gej/s300/blog-511-700x466.jpg"][/img]
[img alt="Interior"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8vkydvdSTo2WfpcCAetYdBfo_09T6ehq-1oxWTM-60x568PH-HPCOE7plVG8PJu-ejNdwgy757id3piwh_M-c6cUj27iM4esOYM9SNdzUNxqqw-cJdjfYQtKp8iYiZjcFcMRDOO8gDz-f/s300/4878276416_647837094f_b-702x336.jpg"][/img]
[img alt="flower"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKB6ySeb1Q30YA-ydzkUhvhfdH9I_xkMFLKkhTACCK_RBrgaNaiuxiihJ8KntnzkXhB7GsEPsLeHcT-eMfktRfVg72dsrEEJQzFh0r0Zz4okaK3eMSaOHUgt-K34_rlX28bAetjvn_q6A/s300/cape-cod-wedding-pink-hydreanga-aisle-runners-700x458.jpg"][/img]
[img alt="other fashion"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8xppHYt35aFnJrWGNebSUDmYm0R5g7cQZWsiGSd5JJzQ2rBzRktv1xDELUrAnpIeM-oMuLu50XAbheuT1rjuMld0qteh9sCJbLL6XHTjJ5JPDLMpGRWdhbM9T0e_MWA3yXbsleGLU2Fy/s300/fashion3-326x235.jpg"][/img]
[img alt="cars"
src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFG50H43fOmsOBZhvHIRbQbACn7r1pgLao4aWt_y1kmV4pwwM1VBnhEqSohZ_rI1h1mqZzzYjWcWq0aclt9y-vpy2V7cXlfQ6L1Q1EwuR1-acvDbOR45TCbjFdTRs2icvd5iWw_pT0t6P/s300/Bmw-I8-Concept-Spyder-HD-Wallpaper-1080p.jpg"][/img]
[/pgallery]
But, at
last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling around
us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas that are there; when
the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and gored the dark
waves in her madness, till, like showers of silver chips, the foam-flakes
flew over her bulwarks; then all this desolate vacuity of life went away,
but gave place to sights more dismal than before.
thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable
sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds
were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to
the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft;
a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for
their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the
black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane
soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had
bred.
Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather
Cape Tormentoto, as called of yore; for long allured by the perfidious
silences that before had attended us, we found ourselves launched into
this tormented sea, where guilty beings transformed into those fowls and
these fish, seemed condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in
store, or beat that black air without any horizon. But calm, snow-white,
and unvarying; still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still
beckoning us on from before, the solitary jet would at times be
descried.
During all this blackness of the
elements, Ahab, though assuming for the time the almost continual command
of the drenched and dangerous deck, manifested the gloomiest reserve; and
more seldom than ever addressed his mates. In tempestuous times like
these, after everything above and aloft has been secured, nothing more can
be done but passively to await the issue of the gale. Then Captain and
crew become practical fatalists. So, with his ivory leg inserted into its
accustomed hole, and with one hand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for
hours and hours would stand gazing dead to windward, while an occasional
squall of sleet or snow would all but congeal his very eyelashes together.
Meantime, the crew driven from the forward part of the ship by the
perilous seas that burstingly broke over its bows, stood in a line along
the bulwarks in the waist; and the better to guard against the leaping
waves, each man had slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to the
rail, in which he swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words were
spoken; and the silent ship, as if manned by painted sailors in wax, day
after day tore on through all the swift madness and gladness of the
demoniac waves. By night the same muteness of humanity before the shrieks
of the ocean prevailed; still in silence the men swung in the bowlines;
still wordless Ahab stood up to the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed
demanding repose he would not seek that repose in his hammock. Never could
Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down into the
cabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting
straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain and half-melted sleet of the
storm from which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping
from the unremoved hat and coat. On the table beside him lay unrolled one
of those charts of tides and currents which have previously been spoken
of. His lantern swung from his tightly clenched hand. Though the body was
erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eyes were pointed
towards the needle of the tell-tale that swung from a beam in the
ceiling.* [right-side]