THE WHITE WHALE 39 
looks from J onah to the bill ; while all his sympathetic shipmates now 
crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frighted 
Jonah trembles, and summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks 
so much the more a coward. He will not confess himself suspected ; 
but that itself is strong suspicion. So he makes the best of it ; and when 
the sailors find him not to he the man that is advertised, they let him 
pass, and he descends into the cabin. 
u ‘Who’s there ?’ cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making 
out his papers for the Customs — ‘Who’s there ?’ Oh ! how that harm- 
less question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee 
again. But he rallies. ‘I seek a passage in the ship to Tarshish; 
how soon sail ye, sir?’ Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up 
to J onah, though the man now stands before him ; hut no sooner does he 
hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinising glance. ‘We sail 
with the next coming tide,’ at last he slowly answered, still intently eye- 
ing him. ‘Ho sooner, sir?’ — ‘Soon enough for any honest man that 
goes a passenger.’ Ha! Jonah! that’s another stab. But he swiftly 
calls away the Captain from that scent. ‘I’ll sail with ye,’ — he says, 
— ‘the passage money, how much is that? — I’ll pay now.’ For it is 
particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be over- 
looked in this history, ‘that he paid the fare thereof’ ere the craft did 
sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning. 
“How Jonah’s Captain, shipmates, was. one whose discernment detects 
crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In 
this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and with- 
out a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. 
So Jonah’s Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah’s purse, ere 
he judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum; and it’s 
assented to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive ; but at 
the same time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold. 
Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still 
molest the Captain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Hot 
a forger, any way, he mutters ; and Jonah is put down for his passage. 
‘Point out my state-room, sir,’ says Jonah now, ‘I’m travel-weary; 
I need sleep.’ ‘Thou look’st like it,’ says the Captain, ‘there’s thy 
room.’ Jonah enters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains 
no key. Hearing him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain laughs 
