Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaDemoCD2.iso/ASCII/TEXTE/BOOKS/Novels/H.Melville/moby.19

Text File | 1994-05-27 | 6.5 KB | 104 lines

.. < chapter xix 2  THE PROPHET >

     Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?
Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from the
water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the above
words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his
massive forefinger at the vessel in question.  He was but shabbily apparelled
in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchief
investing his neck.  A confluent small-pox had in all directions flowed over
his face, and left it like the complicated ribbed bed of a torrent, when the
rushing waters have been dried up.  Have ye shipped in her?  he repeated.

     You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose, said I, trying to gain a little more
time for an uninterrupted look at him.  Aye, the Pequod --that ship there, he
said, drawing back his whole arm, and then rapidly shoving it straight out
from him, with the fixed bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the
object.  Yes, said I, we have just signed the articles.  Anything down
there about your souls?  About what?  Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any, he
said quickly.  no matter though, i know many chaps that hav'n't got any,
--good luck to 'em; and they are all the better off for it.  A soul's a sort
of a fifth wheel to a wagon.  What are you jabbering about, shipmate?  said
I.  He's got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that sort in
other chaps, abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous emphasis upon the
word he.  Queequeg, said I, let's go; this fellow has broken loose from
somewhere; he's talking about something and somebody we don't know.
.. <p 92 >

     Stop!  cried the stranger.  Ye said true --ye hav'n't seen Old Thunder yet,
have ye?  Who's Old Thunder?  said I, again riveted with the insane
earnestness of his manner.  Captain Ahab.  What!  the captain of our ship,
the Pequod?  Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name.
Ye hav'n't seen him yet, have ye?  No, we hav'n't.  He's sick they say, but
is getting better, and will be all right again before long.  All right again
before long!  laughed the stranger, with a solemnly derisive sort of laugh.

     Look ye; when captain Ahab is all right, then this left arm of mine will be
all right; not before.  What do you know about him?  What did they tell
you about him?  Say that!  They didn't tell much of anything about him; only
I've heard that he's a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew.

     That's true, that's true --yes, both true enough.  But you must jump when he
gives an order.  Step and growl; growl and go --that's the word with Captain
Ahab.  But nothing about that thing that happened to him off Cape Horn, long
ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights; nothing about that
deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar in Santa? -- heard nothing
about that, eh?  Nothing about the silver calabash he spat into?  And nothing
about his losing his leg last voyage, according to the prophecy.  Didn't ye
hear a word about them matters and something more, eh?  No, I don't think ye
did; how could ye?  Who knows it?  Not all Nantucket, I guess.  But
hows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard tell about the leg, and how he lost it; aye,
ye have heard of that, I dare say.  Oh yes, that every one knows a'most --I
mean they know he's only one leg; and that a parmacetti took the other off.

     My friend, said I, what all this gibberish of yours is about, I don't
know, and I don't much care; for it seems to me that you must be a little
damaged in the head.  But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, of that ship
there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about the loss of
his leg.
.. <p 93 >

     All about it, eh --sure you do? --all?  Pretty sure.  With finger pointed
and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like stranger stood a moment, as if
in a troubled reverie; then starting a little, turned and said: -- Ye've
shipped, have ye?  Names down on the papers?  Well, well, what's signed, is
signed; and what's to be, will be; and then again, perhaps it wont be, after
all.  Any how, it's all fixed and arranged a'ready; and some sailors or
other must go with him, I suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity
'em!  Morning to ye, shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I'm
sorry I stopped ye.  Look here, friend, said I, if you have anything
important to tell us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle
us, you are mistaken in your game; that's all I have to say.  And it's said
very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way; you are just the man
for him --the likes of ye.  Morning to ye, shipmates, morning!  Oh, when ye get
there, tell 'em I've concluded not to make one of 'em.  Ah, my dear fellow,
you can't fool us that way --you can't fool us.  It is the easiest thing in
the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.  Morning to
ye, shipmates, morning.  Morning it is, said I. Come along, Queequeg,
let's leave this crazy man.  But stop, tell me your name, will you?

     Elijah.  Elijah!  thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after
each other's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he was
nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear.  But we had not gone perhaps
above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and looking back as I
did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us, though at a distance.
Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I said nothing to Queequeg of
his being behind, but passed on with my comrade, anxious to see whether the
stranger would turn the same corner that we did.  He did; and then it seemed
to me that he was dogging us, but with what intent I could not for the life
of me imagine.  This circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting,
half-revealing, shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me
.. <p 94 >
all kinds of vague wonderments and half-apprehensions, and all connected with
the Pequod; and Captain Ahab; and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn
fit; and the silver calabash; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when
I left the ship the day previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig;
and the voyage we had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy
things.  I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was
really dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg,

     and on that side of it retraced our steps.  But Elijah passed on, without
seeming to notice us.  This relieved me; and once more, and finally as it
seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug.
.. <p 94 >