.. < chapter lxxi 2  THE JEROBOAM'S STORY >

     Hand in hand, ship and breeze
blew on; but the breeze came faster than the ship, and soon the Pequod began
to rock.  By and by, through the glass the stranger's boats and manned
mast-heads proved her a whale-ship.  but as she was so far to windward, and
shooting by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the Pequod
could not hope to reach her.  So the signal was set to see what response would
be made.  Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the
ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which
signals being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels
attached, every captain is provided with it.  Thereby, the whale commanders
are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at considerable
distances, and with no small facility.  The Pequod's signal was at last
responded to by the stranger's setting her own; which proved the ship to be
the Jeroboam of Nantucket.  Squaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam
under the Pequod's lee, and lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the
side-ladder was being rigged by Starbuck's order to accommodate the visiting
captain, the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat's stern in
token of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary.  It turned out that the
Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her captain,
was fearful of infecting the Pequod's company.  For, though himself and boat's
crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half a rifle-shot off, and
an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between; yet conscientiously
adhering to the timid quarantine of the land, he peremptorily refused to come
into direct contact with the Pequod.  But this did by no means prevent all
communication.  Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and
the
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ship, the Jeroboam's boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep
parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this
time it blew very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at
times by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed
some way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings
again.  Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a
conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not
without still another interruption of a very different sort.  Pulling an oar
in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a singular appearance, even in that wild
whaling life where individual notabilities make up all totalities.  He was a
small, short, youngish man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and
wearing redundant yellow hair.  A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a
faded walnut tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves of which were
rolled up on his wrists.  A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.
So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed -- That's
he!  that's he!  the long-togged scaramouch the Town-Ho's company told us of!

     Stubb here alluded to a strange story told of the Jeroboam, and a certain
man among her crew, some time previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho.
According to this account and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that
the scaramouch in question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost
everybody in the Jeroboam.  His story was this: He had been originally
nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna Shakers, where he had been a
great prophet; in their cracked, secret meetings having several times
descended from heaven by the way of a trap-door, announcing the speedy
opening of the seventh vial, which he carried in his vest-pocket; but, which,
instead of containing gunpowder, was supposed to be charged with laudanum.  A
strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for
Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a
steady, common sense exterior and offered himself as a green-hand candidate
for the Jeroboam's whaling voyage.  They engaged him;
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but straightway upon the ship's getting out of sight of land, his insanity
broke out in a freshet.  He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and
commanded the captain to jump overboard.  He published his manifesto, whereby
he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and
vicar-general of all Oceanica.  The unflinching earnestness with which he
declared these things; --the dark, daring play of his sleepless, excited
imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united to
invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant crew, with
an atmosphere of sacredness.  Moreover, they were afraid of him.  As such a
man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship, especially as he
refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous captain would fain
have been rid of him; but apprised that that individual's intention was to
land him in the first convenient port, the archangel forthwith opened all his
seals and vials -- devoting the ship and all hands to unconditional perdition,
in case this intention was carried out.  So strongly did he work upon his
disciples among the crew, that at last in a body they went to the captain and
told him if Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain.
He was therefore forced to relinquish his plan.  Nor would they permit Gabriel
to be any way maltreated, say or do what he would; so that it came to pass
that Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship.  The consequence of all
this was, that the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and
mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than
ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command;
nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure.  The sailors,
mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him; in
obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to
a god.  Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they are
true.  Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the
measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power
of deceiving and bedevilling so many others.  But it is time to return to the
Pequod.  I fear not thy epidemic, man, said Ahab from the bulwarks
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to Captain Mayhew, who stood in the boat's stern; come on board.  But now
Gabriel started to his feet.  Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious!
Beware of the horrible plague!  Gabriel, Gabriel!  cried Captain Mayhew;

     thou must either-- But that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far
ahead, and its seethings drowned all speech.  Hast thou seen the White Whale?
demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted back.  Think, think of thy whale-boat,
stoven and sunk!  Beware of the horrible tail!  I tell thee again, Gabriel,
that-- But again the boat tore ahead as if dragged by fiends.  Nothing was
said for some moments, while a succession of riotous waves rolled by, which
by one of those occasional caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it.

     Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale's head jogged about very violently, and
Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his
archangel nature seemed to warrant.  When this interlude was over, Captain
Mayhew began a dark story concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without
frequent interruptions from Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and
the crazy sea that seemed leagued with him.  It seemed that the Jeroboam had
not long left home, when upon speaking a whale-ship, her people were
reliably apprised of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made.
Greedily sucking in this intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned the captain
against attacking the white whale, in case the monster should be seen; in his
gibbering insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the
Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible.  But when, some year
or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey,
the chief mate, burned with ardor to encounter him; and the captain himself
being not unwilling to let him have the opportunity, despite all the
archangel's denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading
five men to man his boat.  With them he pushed off; and, after
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much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last
succeeded in getting one iron fast.  Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the
main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling
forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his
divinity.  Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat's bow, and
with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations
upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo!
a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion,
temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen.  Next instant,
the luckless mate, so full of furious life, was smitten bodily into the air,

     and making a long arc in his descent, fell into the sea at the distance of
about fifty yards.  Not a chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any
oarsman's head; but the mate for ever sank.  It is well to parenthesize here,

     that of the fatal accidents in the Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps
almost as frequent as any.  Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is
thus annihilated; oftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or the
thigh-board, in which the headsman stands, is torn from its place and
accompanies the body.  But strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more
instances than one, when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of
violence is discernible; the man being stark dead.  The whole calamity, with
the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried from the ship.  Raising a
piercing shriek -- The vial!  the vial!  Gabriel called off the
terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of the whale.  This terrible
event clothed the archangel with added influence; because his credulous
disciples believed that he had specifically fore-announced it, instead of
only making a general prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have
chanced to hit one of many marks in the wide margin allowed.  He became a
nameless terror to the ship.  Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put
such questions to him, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring
whether he intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer.  To
which Ahab answered -- Aye.  Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to
his feet, glaring
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upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with downward pointed finger
-- Think, think of the blasphemer --dead, and down there! --beware of the
blasphemer's end!  Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew,

     Captain, I have just bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for
one of thy officers, if I mistake not.  Starbuck, look over the bag.  Every
whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships, whose
delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends upon the mere
chance of encountering them in the four oceans.  Thus, most letters never
reach their mark; and many are only received after attaining an age of two
or three years or more.  Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand.  It
was sorely tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in
consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin.  Of such a letter,
Death himself might well have been the post-boy.  Can'st not read it?  cried
ahab.  give it me, man.  aye, aye it's but a dim scrawl; --what's this?  As
he was studying it out, Starbuck took a long cutting-spade pole, and with his
knife slightly split the end, to insert the letter there, and in that way,
hand it to the boat, without its coming any closer to the ship.  Meantime, Ahab
holding the letter, muttered, Mr. Har--yes, Mr. Harry--(a woman's pinny hand,
--the man's wife, I'll wager) -- Aye --Mr. Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam; --why
it's Macey, and he's dead!  Poor fellow!  poor fellow!  and from his wife,
sighed Mayhew; but let me have it.  Nay, keep it thyself, cried Gabriel to
Ahab; thou art soon going that way.  Curses throttle thee!  yelled Ahab.

     Captain Mayhew, stand by now to receive it; and taking the fatal missive
from Starbuck's hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it
over towards the boat.  But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted
from rowing; the boat drifted a little towards the ship's stern; so that, as
if by magic, the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel's eager hand.  He
clutched it in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the letter on
it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship.  It fell at Ahab's feet.  Then
Gabriel
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shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in that manner
the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod.  As, after this
interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket of the whale, many
strange things were hinted in reference to this wild affair.
..