CHAPTER EIGHT

A Victim of Moby Dick

The Cape of Good Hope is a strange name for a part of the ocean of horrible and deadly seas, howling winds, and jumping waves. We met another ship a little to the southwest of this point. It was the Albatross. Judging from her old sides and the poor appearance of her ragged sailors, she was a ship that hadn't been home for a long time.

"Ship ahoy!" Ahab called to the other captain. "Have you seen the White Whale?"

The captain of the Albatross put the horn to his mouth, but it fell out of his hand into the sea, and he wasn't able to make himself heard. So we continued past them.

After a while we met another whaling ship that was going home, the Town-Ho. This time, Ahab allowed a gam, or exchange of visits. On the Town-Ho were some crewmen who whispered the secret of their ship to Tashtego. Later, he told us about it and it made us more curious and interested in Moby Dick.

What happened aboard the Town-Ho was this: A sailor and the First Mate had gotten into a fight over an order about who was to sweep the deck. In self-defense, the sailor hit the mate so hard that he passed out. Other crew members then became involved, and soon the fight was in danger of destroying the order on the ship.

Steelkilt, the seaman, was about to kill Radney, the Chief Mate, when a call was heard. Moby Dick had been sighted. Radney's boat was the first boat lowered into the sea, and as he stood with his harpoon, he was washed overboard. Moby Dick came underneath him and closed his jaws on Radney. Then the White Whale pulled himself up as if on show before diving down deep into the freezing water.

When the whale came back to the surface, he had some pieces of Radney's red wool shirt caught in his teeth. The other four boats chased after him but Moby Dick disappeared.

After hearing this story, we couldn't stop thinking about Moby Dick. Daggoo, who had the look-out, saw a great white mass that kept rising and sinking in the ocean. "There she spouts water, right ahead!" he called. "The White Whale, the White Whale!"

Ahab gave instant commands to lower the boats. He moved his boat ahead of the other three. I watched as a vast, big, cream-colored whale came floating on the water. Countless numbers of long arms came out from its center. They looked like a nest of white snakes. It didn't have a face or even a front; it was just a shapeless thing, like a ghost.

When it disappeared again, it made a low sound like water being drawn downward. Starbuck said, "I would have rather seen and fought Moby Dick than that white ghost."

"What in the world was that, sir?" asked Flask.

"The great live squid. Among whalers there's a belief that ships who see the squid never return to their homes."

Ahab didn't say anything. He turned his boat back to the ship, and the rest of us silently followed.

However, Queequeg had a different belief about the squid. "When you see a squid, then you will surely see a sperm whale."

The next day was so hot that all of us were lazy and only wanted to sleep. But sure enough, just as Queequeg had said earlier, we spotted a huge sperm whale swimming along and spouting his jet of water. He reminded me of a fat man lazily smoking his pipe on a warm afternoon.

As if struck by magic, we no longer were sleepy men but whalers busy lowering the boats into the water. We must have made some noise that frightened the whale, for he threw his tail forty feet into the air and dove out of sight, like a tower disappearing under a wave.

Stubb was the nearest to the whale and he counted on having the honor of capturing it.

"Start her, start her, rowing like thunder, my men," he ordered. "But keep cool—calm and cool is the word. Start her, Tash, my boy."

"Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!" screamed the Indian in reply, as if raising an old Indian war cry.

The other boats answered his wild screams with their own.

"Kee-hee! Kee-hee!" yelled Daggoo. He looked like a restless tiger walking back and forth in a cage.

"Ka-la! Koo-loo!" cried Queequeg.

The men in Stubb's boat rowed hard until the command was heard.

"Stand up, Tashtego! Give it to him!"

The harpoon was thrown and sank into the whale. Attached, the boat now flew through the rolling water like a shark that is all muscle. She seemed to go on for miles and miles this way, until at last the whale grew tired and had to slow his escape.

"Bring him in, Bring him in!" cried Stubb.

The men began pulling the boat up to the whale using the harpoon's rope. Stubb sent harpoon after harpoon into the whale's body. Soon the ocean was red on all sides of the whale. The sun's reflection on the bloody water could be seen on the faces of the men, so that they all glowed like red men.

"Pull up!" Stubb now cried, and the boat reached the whale's side. Reaching over the front of the boat, Stubb stuck his long lance into the heart of the whale and twisted and turned it.

The whale made a last attempt to escape. The boat had to go back to miss his mad, boiling spray. Then the spray stopped, and we could hear the opening and closing of his spout hole, like a dying breath. He was breathing with sharp, cracking breaths. Streams of red blood shot into the air, then ran down the whale's sides into the sea. His heart had burst.

Stubb removed his pipe from his mouth and threw the ashes all over the water, as if performing some act of respect for the dead whale. He thoughtfully looked at the vast newly-dead body he had just killed.

(end of section)