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Updated: June 12, 2025
And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side. Stubb Kills a Whale. If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to Queequeg it was quite a different object.
The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-shadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapour no longer blended, but tilted everywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes. The boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales running dead to leeward.
Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted.
But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for Captain Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the talking and commanding, and not Bildad. "Aft here, ye sons of bachelors," he cried, as the sailors lingered at the main-mast. "Mr. Starbuck, drive'em aft." "Strike the tent there!" was the next order.
And now suspended in stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates, armed with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the body for the insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two side-fins.
For some time after his exit nothing was said, but finally Margaret, standing near the window, began to look for the ends of the broken thread of discourse. "Now, let me see." To help her out Starbuck volunteered his services. "We had got to whar I was the biggest fool when I tried. Don't you ricolleck?" "Oh, you want to git back to whar you was tryin' to pick a quarrel with me, do you?"
"Aye, sir," said Starbuck drawing near, "'tis a solemn sight; an omen, and an ill one." "Omen? omen? the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to man, they will honorably speak outright; not shake their heads, and give an old wives' darkling hint. Begone!
But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew, the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, "I have it! It has happened before. Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder turned our compasses that's all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it." "Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir," said the pale mate, gloomily.
In this foreshadowing interval, too, all humor, forced or natural, vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more strove to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of Ahab's iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly moved about the deck, ever conscious that the old man's despot eye was on them.
Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world? Oh, oh, Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him more!" "Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that hour we both saw thou know'st what, in one another's eyes.
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