117. CHAPTER CXVII.
THE WHALE WATCH.
The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one,
far to windward; one, less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one
astern. These last three were brought alongside ere nightfall;
but the windward one could not be reached till morning; and
the boat that had killed it lay by its side all night; and that
boat was Ahab's.
The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale's
spout-hole; and the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled
flickering glare upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon
the midnight waves, which gently chafed the whale's broad flank,
like soft surf upon a beach.
Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee;
who crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally
played round the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks
with their tails. A sound like the moaning in squadrons over
Asphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering
through the air.
Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee;
and hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the
last men in a flooded world. “I have dreamed it again,”
said he.
“Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither
hearse nor coffin can be thine?”
“And who are hearsed that die on the sea?”
“But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage,
two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not
made by mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must
be grown in America.”
“Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee:—a hearse and its
plumes floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers.
Ha! Such a sight we shall not soon see.”
“Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man.”
“And what was that saying about thyself?”
“Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy
pilot.”
“And when thou art so gone before—if that ever befall—then
ere I can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me
still?—Was it not so? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh
my pilot! I have here two pledges that I shall yet slay Moby
Dick and survive it.”
“Take another pledge, old man,” said the Parsee, as his eyes
lighted up like fire-flies in the gloom—“Hemp only can kill
thee.”
“The gallows, ye mean.—I am immortal then, on land and
on sea,” cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision;—“Immortal on
land and on sea!”
Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came
on, and the slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and
ere noon the dead whale was brought to the ship.
