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The upper masts vanished into the vapor, and, from where I stood aft, I could but dimly perceive the open deck amidships. The light yet burning in the binnacle was hazy and dull. There was to my mind a threat in the weather, expressed in the silence overhead, as well as in the sullen swell underfoot.
"I know what our old Sam and my father and Binnacle Bill have taught me," I said quietly. "No, you don't you don't know anything only how to be surly and disagreeable to your visitors." "I say, Bob," I said, "is it true what people say?" "I don't care what people say." "Why, that your father gives you so much physic that it makes you sour?" I repented saying it directly, for Bob stopped short.
The after half of her deck was parted off with a light rope-rail, was kept as white as holy-stone could make it, and had a brass-railed bulwark. She was steered with a wheel, for more room; the top of the binnacle was made sloping, to serve as a lectern; there were seats all round the bulwarks; and she was called the Clemency.
He did not know exactly where he was, for he seemed to have steamed clean off the chart; but as he conned the helm that evening, and leaned over the lighted binnacle, he had a feeling that he was not far from some destiny. With cheerful assurance he lashed the wheel again, and turned in. He woke once in the night, and leaped from the hammock with a start.
The captain and master frequently cast anxious looks at the compass in the binnacle, while the second lieutenant with the boatswain went forward and stood on the forecastle, peering with all their might and main into the darkness ahead.
Well, Mr Simple, as they say at the play, that was act the first, scene the first; and now we had to make our appearance, and I'll leave you to judge, after I've told my tale, whether the old Captain wasn't principal performer, and top sawyer over them all. But stop a moment, I'll just look at the binnacle, for that young topman's nodding at the wheel.
Thrusting his head half-way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West.
"I thought something like this might happen, and in order to be prepared for eventualities I hung a fire bucket over the edge of the weather-bridge railing and set another there by the binnacle. The man at the wheel got me started, sir. He asked me if I liked fat pork.
He was not alone, for old Binnacle Bill, as we called him, was behind, carrying the oars and the mast with the little sail twisted round, so as to put them in Uggleston's lean-to shed.
The roar of the breakers sounded ominously close through the gray canopy of fog. The little craft rocked briskly in the trough of the swell as Lang threw the wheel over and headed out to sea. Flashing a small light over the compass, which served as an improvised binnacle, he peered intently at the instrument. Then he spoke softly to the man forward. "Take the wheel, Joe."
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