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_ According to usage they were pumping the ship next morning; and lo!
no inconsiderable oil came up with the water; the casks below must
have sprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown; and Starbuck went
down into the cabin to report this unfavourable affair.*
*In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it
is a regular semiweekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and
drench the casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying
intervals, is removed by the ship's pumps. Hereby the casks are
sought to be kept damply tight; while by the changed character of the
withdrawn water, the mariners readily detect any serious leakage in
the precious cargo.
Now, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa
and the Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets
from the China waters into the Pacific. And so Starbuck found Ahab
with a general chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him;
and another separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the
Japanese islands--Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white
new ivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a
long pruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man,
with his back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and
tracing his old courses again.
"Who's there?" hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning
round to it. "On deck! Begone!"
"Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking,
sir. We must up Burtons and break out."
"Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan; heave-to
here for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?"
"Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make
good in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth
saving, sir."
"So it is, so it is; if we get it."
"I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir."
"And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it
leak! I'm all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of
leaky casks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that's a
far worse plight than the Pequod's, man. Yet I don't stop to plug my
leak; for who can find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to
plug it, even if found, in this life's howling gale? Starbuck!
I'll not have the Burtons hoisted."
"What will the owners say, sir?"
"Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons.
What cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me,
Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my
conscience. But look ye, the only real owner of anything is its
commander; and hark ye, my conscience is in this ship's keel.--On
deck!"
"Captain Ahab," said the reddening mate, moving further into the
cabin, with a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it
almost seemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest
outward manifestation of itself, but within also seemed more than
half distrustful of itself; "A better man than I might well pass over
in thee what he would quickly enough resent in a younger man; aye,
and in a happier, Captain Ahab."
"Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of
me?--On deck!"
"Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir--to be
forbearing! Shall we not understand each other better than hitherto,
Captain Ahab?"
Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most
South-Sea-men's cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck,
exclaimed: "There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one
Captain that is lord over the Pequod.--On deck!"
For an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery
cheeks, you would have almost thought that he had really received the
blaze of the levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion, he half
calmly rose, and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and
said: "Thou hast outraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask
thee not to beware of Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab
beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man."
"He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; most careful bravery that!"
murmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared. "What's that he said--Ahab
beware of Ahab--there's something there!" Then unconsciously using
the musket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the
little cabin; but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed,
and returning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck.
"Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck," he said lowly to the
mate; then raising his voice to the crew: "Furl the t'gallant-sails,
and close-reef the top-sails, fore and aft; back the main-yard; up
Burton, and break out in the main-hold."
It were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as
respecting Starbuck, Ahab thus acted. It may have been a flash of
honesty in him; or mere prudential policy which, under the
circumstance, imperiously forbade the slightest symptom of open
disaffection, however transient, in the important chief officer of
his ship. However it was, his orders were executed; and the Burtons
were hoisted. _
Read next: CHAPTER 110 Queequeg in His Coffin.
Read previous: CHAPTER 108 Ahab and the Carpenter.
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