"Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong,strong, boys!)" in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loudagain: "A sad business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, mylads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all yourcrew pull strong, come what will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There'shogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that's what ye came for.
(Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm's the play! This at least is duty;duty and profit hand in hand."
"Aye, aye, I thought as much," soliloquized Stubb, when the boatsdiverged, "as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so. Aye, andthat's what he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boylong suspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale's atthe bottom of it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped! All right!
Give way men! It ain't the White Whale to-day! Give way!"Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a criticalinstant as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had notunreasonably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of theship's company; but Archy's fancied discovery having some timeprevious got abroad among them, though indeed not credited then,this had in some small measure prepared them for the event. It tookoff the extreme edge of their wonder; and so what with all this andStubb's confident way of accounting for their appearance, they werefor the time freed from superstitious surmisings; though the affairstill left abundant room for all manner of wild conjectures as to darkAhab's precise agency in the matter from the beginning. For me, Isilently recalled the mysterious shadows I had seen creeping onboard the Pequod during the dim Nantucket dawn, as well as theenigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah.
Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided thefurthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; acircumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tigeryellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like fivetrip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength,which periodically started the boat along the water like ahorizontal burst boiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah,who was seen pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his blackjacket, and displayed his naked chest with the whole part of hisbody above the gunwale, clearly cut against the alternatingdepressions of the watery horizon; while at the other end of theboat Ahab, with one arm, like a fencer's, thrown half backward intothe air, as if to counterbalance any tendency to trip; Ahab was seensteadily managing his steering oar as in a thousand boat lowerings erethe White Whale had torn him. All at once the outstretched arm gavea peculiar motion and then remained fixed, while the boat's fiveoars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat and crew sat motionlesson the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in the rear paused ontheir way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily down into theblue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the movement,though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it.
"Every man look out along his oars!" cried Starbuck. "Thou,Queequeg, stand up!"
Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, thesavage stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed offtowards the spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise uponthe extreme stern of the boat where it was also triangularlyplatformed level with the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coollyand adroitly balancing himself to the jerking tossings of his chipof a craft, and silently eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea.
Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly still;its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, astout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feetabove the level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turnswith the whale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of aman's hand, and standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemedperched at the mast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but hertrucks. But little King-Post was small and short, and at the same timelittle King-Post was full of a large and tall ambition, so that thislogger head stand-point of his did by no means satisfy King-Post.
"I can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me ontothat."
Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady hisway, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his loftyshoulders for a pedestal.
"Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?""That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wishyou fifty feet taller."
Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks ofthe boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flatpalm to Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on hishearse-plumed head and bidding him spring as he himself should toss,with one dexterous fling landed the little man high and dry on hisshoulders. And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted armfurnishing him with a breastband to lean against and steady himselfby.
