Chapter LII: THE ALBATROSS
South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good
cruising ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney
(Albatross) by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at
the fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a
tyro in the far ocean fisheries --a whaler at sea, and long absent
from home. As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached
like the skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this
spectral appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust,
while all her spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of
trees furred over with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. A
wild sight it was to see her long-bearded look-outs at those three
mast-heads. They seemed clad in the skins of beasts, so torn and
bepatched the raiment that had survived nearly four years of
cruising. Standing in iron hoops nailed to the mast, they swayed and
swung over a fathomless sea; and though, when the ship slowly glided
close under our stern, we six men in the air came so nigh to each
other that we might almost have leaped from the mast-heads of one ship
to those of the other; yet, those forlorn-looking fishermen, mildly
eyeing us as they passed, said not one word to our own look-outs,
while the quarter-deck hail was being heard from below. Ship ahoy!
Have ye seen the White Whale? But as the strange captain, leaning over
the pallid bulwarks, was in the act of putting his trumpet to his
mouth, it somehow fell from his hand into the sea; and the wind now
rising amain, he in vain strove to make himself heard without it.
Meantime his ship was still increasing the distance between. While in
various silent ways the seamen of the Pequod were evincing their
observance of this ominous incident at the first mere mention of the
White Whale's name to another ship, Ahab for a moment paused; it
almost seemed as though he would have lowered a boat to board the
stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But taking advantage
of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet, and knowing by
her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer and shortly
bound home, he loudly hailed -- Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, bound
round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the
Pacific ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home, tell
them to address them to----- At that moment the two wakes were fairly
crossed, and instantly, then, in accordance with their singular ways,
shoals of small harmless fish, that for some days before had been
placidly swimming by our side, darted away with what seemed shuddering
fins, and ranged themselves fore and aft with the stranger's flanks.
Though in the course of his continual voyagings Ahab must often before
have noticed a similar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the veriest
trifles capriciously carry meanings. Swim away from me, do ye?
murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water. There seemed but little in
the words, but the tone conveyed more of deep helpless sadness than
the insane old man had ever before evinced. But turning to the
steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in the wind to
diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion voice, -- Up helm!
Keep her off round the world! Round the world! There is much in that
sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does all that
circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very
point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were
all the time before us. Were this world an endless plain, and by
sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover
sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King
Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of
those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon
phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts; while
chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren
mazes or midway leave us whelmed. The cabin-compass is called the
tell-tale, because without going to the compass at the helm, the
Captain, while below, can inform himself of the course of the ship.