Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaDemoCD2.iso/ASCII/TEXTE/BOOKS/Novels/H.Melville/moby.66

Text File | 1994-05-27 | 3.6 KB | 57 lines

.. < chapter lxvi 2  THE SHARK MASSACRE >

     When in the Southern Fishery, a
captured Sperm Whale, after long and weary toil, is brought alongside late at
night, it is not, as a general thing at least, customary to proceed at once
to the business of cutting him in.  For that business is an exceedingly
laborious one; is not very soon completed; and requires all hands to set
about it.  Therefore, the common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm
a'lee; and then send every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the
reservation that, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is,
two and two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the
deck to see that all goes well.  But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the
Pacific, this plan will not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts
of sharks gather round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six
hours, say, on a stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by
morning.  In most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not
so largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably
diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, a
procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to tickle
them into still greater activity.  But it was not thus in the present case
with the Pequod's sharks; though, to be sure, any man unaccustomed to such
sights, to have looked over her side that night, would have almost thought
the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it.
nevertheless, upon stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was
concluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came on
deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for immediately
suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering three lanterns, so

     that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid sea, these
.. <p 301 >
two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an incessant
murdering of the sharks, by striking the keen steel deep into their skulls,
seemingly their only vital part.  But in the foamy confusion of their mixed
and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not always hit their mark; and this
brought about new revelations of the incredible ferocity of the foe.  They
viciously snapped, not only at each other's disembowelments, but like
flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own; till those entrails seemed
swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by
the gaping wound.  Nor was this all.  It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses
and ghosts of these creatures.  A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality
seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones, after what might be called the
individual life had departed.  Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his
skin, one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off, when he
tried to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.  Queequeg no care what
god made him shark, said the savage, agonizingly lifting his hand up and
down; wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be
one dam Ingin.
.. <p 301n. >
The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel; is about
the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general shape, corresponds to
the garden implement after which it is named; only its sides are perfectly
flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than the lower.  This weapon
is always kept as sharp as possible; and when being used is occasionally
honed, just like a razor.  In its socket, a stiff pole, from twenty to
thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle.
.. <p 301 >