Chapter CXXIII: THE MUSKET
During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the Pequod's
jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by
its spasmodic motions, even though preventer tackles had been attached
to it --for they were slack -- because some play to the tiller was
indispensable. In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a
tossed shuttle-cock to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see
the needles in the compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was
thus with the Pequod's; at almost every shock the helmsman had not
failed to notice the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon
the cards; it is a sight that hardly any one can behold without some
sort of unwonted emotion. Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon
abated so much, that through the strenuous exertions of Starbuck and
Stubb --one engaged forward and the other aft --the shivered remnants
of the jib and fore and main-top-sails were cut adrift from the spars,
and went eddying away to leeward, like the feathers of an albatross,
which sometimes are cast to the winds when that storm-tossed bird is
on the wing. The three corresponding new sails were now bent and
reefed, and a storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon
went through the water with some precision again; and the course --for
the present, East-south-east --which he was to steer, if practicable,
was once more given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the
gale, he had only steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he
was now bringing the ship as near her course as possible, watching the
compass meanwhile, lo! a good sign! the wind seemed coming round
astern; aye! the foul breeze became fair! Instantly the yards were
squared, to the lively song of Ho! the fair wind! oh-he-yo, cheerly,
men! the crew singing for joy, that so promising an event should so
soon have falsified the evil portents preceding it. In compliance
with the standing order of his commander -- to report immediately, and
at any one of the twenty-four hours, any decided change in the affairs
of the deck, --Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the yards to the breeze
--however reluctantly and gloomily, --than he mechanically went below
to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance. Ere knocking at his
state-room, he involuntarily paused before it a moment. The cabin
lamp --taking long swings this way and that --was burning fitfully,
and casting fitful shadows upon the old man's bolted door, --a thin
one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels. The
isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain humming silence
to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of the
elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as
they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck was an
honest, upright man; but out of Starbuck's heart, at that instant when
he saw the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so
blent with its neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he
hardly knew it for itself. He would have shot me once, he murmured,
yes, there's the very musket that he pointed at me; --that one with
the studded stock; let me touch it --lift it. Strange, that I, who
have handled so many deadly lances, strange, that I should shake so
now. Loaded? I must see. Aye, aye; and powder in the pan; -- that's
not good. Best spill it? --wait. I'll cure myself of this. I'll hold
the musket boldly while I think. --I come to report a fair wind to
him. But how fair? Fair for death and doom, -- that's fair for Moby
Dick. It's a fair wind that's only fair for that accursed fish. --The
very tube he pointed at me! --the very one; this one --I hold it here;
he would have killed me with the very thing I handle now. --Aye and
he would fain kill all his crew. Does he not say he will not strike
his spars to any gale? Has he not dashed his heavenly quadrant? and
in these same perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere dead
reckoning of the error-abounding log? and in this very Typhoon, did
he not swear that he would have no lightning-rods? But shall this
crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship's company down
to doom with him? --Yes, it would make him the wilful murderer of
thirty men and more, if this ship come to any deadly harm; and come to
deadly harm, my soul swears this ship will, if Ahab have his way. If,
then, he were this instant--put aside, that crime would not be his.
Ha! is he muttering in his sleep? Yes, just there, --in there, he's
sleeping. Sleeping? aye, but still alive, and soon awake again. I
can't withstand thee, then, old man. Not reasoning; not remonstrance;
not entreaty wilt thou hearken to; all this thou scornest. Flat
obedience to thy own flat commands, this is all thou breathest. Aye,
and say'st the men have vow'd thy vow; say'st all of us are Ahabs.
Great God forbid! -- But is there no other way? no lawful way? --Make
him a prisoner to be taken home? What! hope to wrest this old man's
living power from his own living hands? Only a fool would try it.
Say he were pinioned even; knotted all over with ropes and hawsers;
chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor; he would be more
hideous than a caged tiger, then. I could not endure the sight; could
not possibly fly his howlings; all comfort, sleep itself, inestimable
reason would leave me on the long intolerable voyage. What, then,
remains? The land is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan the
nearest. I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and a
whole continent between me and law. --Aye, aye, 'tis so. --Is heaven a
murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed,
tindering sheets and skin together? --And would I be a murderer, then,
if --and slowly, stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placed the
loaded musket's end against the door. On this level, Ahab's hammock
swings within; his head this way. A touch, and Starbuck may survive
to hug his wife and child again. --Oh Mary! Mary! --boy! boy! boy!
--But if I wake thee not to death, old man, who can tell to what
unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day week may sink, with all the
crew! Great God, where art thou? Shall I? shall I? --The wind has
gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails are reefed and
set; she heads her course. Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy
heart at last! Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out
the old man's tormented sleep, as if Starbuck's voice had caused the
long dumb dream to speak. The yet levelled musket shook like a
drunkard's arm against the panel; Starbuck seemed wrestling with an
angel; but turning from the door, he placed the death-tube in its
rack, and left the place. He's too sound asleep, Mr Stubb; go thou
down, and wake him, and tell him. I must see to the deck here. Thou
know'st what to say.