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Updated: June 11, 2025
Whatever was to be done I must do for myself; and out of the courage of fear I evolved the plan of fighting Thomas Mugridge with his own weapons. I borrowed a whetstone from Johansen. Louis, the boat-steerer, had already begged me for condensed milk and sugar. The lazarette, where such delicacies were stored, was situated beneath the cabin floor.
"It is high time we had some communications with the Vineyarders," said Roswell, as they turned at that end of the terrace which was nearest to the wreck. "A full month has passed since we have seen any of them, or have heard a syllable of their doings or welfare." "It's a bad business this separation, Captain Gar'ner," returned the boat-steerer; "and every hour makes it worse.
And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and moreover, as there generally subsists between the two, a close intimacy and friendliness; it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set down who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of them belonged.
It was evident that the sailors had no appreciation of the real happening. They did not know that they were cut off from the old earth by thousands of miles of space. "Your bark's name is Orion, then?" queried the professor. "Aye, aye, sir," said the boat-steerer. "The Orion, out o' New Bedford; the only whaler under sail in these seas, I reckon.
Roswell took a look before and behind him, saw that his boat was safe owing to the formation of the two outlines of the respective fields, when he sprang upon the ice itself, bidding the boat-steerer to wait for him. A shout broke out of the lips of the young captain the instant he was erect on the ice.
"A pad piziness," the boat-steerer reiterated, dolorously, in the silence which followed. "A pad piziness. I vish I was in Yokohama. Eh? Vot vas dot?" The vessel had suddenly heeled over. The decks were aslant. A tin pannikin rolled down the inclined plane, rattling and banging.
Six men formed the crew of each boat: four for pulling, and two being officers; one called the boat-steerer, and the other the headsman. Hitherto not a whale had been caught; but they were in hourly expectation of falling in with some. A sharp lookout was kept for them; a man for the purpose being placed at each masthead, while one of the officers took post on the fore-topgallant-yard.
So great had been Roswell's alarm, and so intent his occupation, that he took no heed of the person who was busy at the camboose, until the man appeared at the side of his berth, holding a tin pot in his hand. It was Stimson, up and dressed, without his skins, and seemingly in perfect preservation. "Here's some hot coffee, Captain Gar'ner," said the provident boat-steerer, "and then turn out.
The captain's boat was now hauled gently on, the boat-steerer guiding it close up to the fin of the wounded whale. Again Captain Carr stood up with his long lance in hand, and plunged it, as few on board could have done, deep into his side. At the same moment the rest of the boats pulled up on the opposite side, the harpooner in the leading one striking his harpoon into him.
In the whaler, the boat-steerers are between the officers and crew, a sort of petty officers; keep by themselves in the waist, sleep amidships, and eat by themselves, either at a separate table, or at the cabin table, after the captain and mates are done. Of all this hierarchy we were entirely ignorant, so the poor boat-steerer was left to himself.
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