THE WHITE WHALE 85 
us, out with it; hut 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 bear a chap talk up that way ; 
you are just the man for him — the likes of ye. Morning to ye, ship- 
mates, 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, hut 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-re- 
vealing, shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of 
vague wonderments and half-apprehensions, and all connected with the 
Pequod ; and Captain Ahah; 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 — an d finally as it seemed to me — I pronounced him in my heart, 
a humbug. 
