The Mat-Maker
It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily loungingabout the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-colored waters.
Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called asword-mat, for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subduedand yet somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantationof revelry lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemedresolved into his own invisible self.
I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As Ikept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline betweenthe long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, andas Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oakensword between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water,carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn; I say so strangea dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship and all over thesea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, thatit seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were ashuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates. Therelay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but one single, everreturning, unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough toadmit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own.
This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand Iply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterablethreads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive, indifferent sword,sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, orweakly, as the case might be; and by this difference in the concludingblow producing a corresponding contrast in the final aspect of thecompleted fabric; this savage's sword, thought I, which thus finallyshapes and fashions both warp and woof; this easy, indifferent swordmust be chance- aye, chance, free will, and necessity- wiseincompatible- all interweavingly working together. The straight warpof necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course- its everyalternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will stillfree to ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, thoughrestrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, andsideways in its motions directed by free will, though thusprescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has thelast featuring blow at events.
Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound sostrange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ballof free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the cloudswhence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the cross-treeswas that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerlyforward, his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief suddenintervals he continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was thatvery moment perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds ofwhalemen's look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of thoselungs could that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellouscadence as from Tashtego the Indian's.
As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly andeagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him someprophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild criesannouncing their coming.
"There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!""Where-away?"
"On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!"Instantly all was commotion.
The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviatingand reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fishfrom other tribes of his genus.
"There go flukes!" was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whalesdisappeared.
"Quick, steward!" cried Ahab. "Time! time!"Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported theexact minute to Ahab.
The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gentlyrolling before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone downheading to leeward, we confidently looked to see them again directlyin advance of our bows. For that singular craft at times evinced bythe Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head in one direction, henevertheless, while concealed beneath the surface, mills around, andswiftly swims off in the opposite quarter- this deceitfulness of hiscould not now be in action; for there was no reason to suppose thatthe fish seen by Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeedknew at all of our vicinity. One of the men selected forshipkeepers- that is, those not appointed to the boats, by this timerelieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The sailors at the fore andmizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed in their places; thecranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, and the three boatsswung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high cliffs.
Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand clung to therail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. So lookthe long line of man-of-war's men about to throw themselves on boardan enemy's ship.
But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard thattook every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab,who was surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed outof air.
