114 
MOBY DICK; OR 
CHAPTEE XXIX 
THE PIPE 
When* Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the 
bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a 
sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his 
pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool 
on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked. 
In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were 
fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhal. How could 
one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethink- 
ing him of the royalty it symbolised ? Eor a khan of the plank, and 
a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab. 
Some moments passed, during which the thick vapour came from 
his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his 
face. “How now,” he soliloquised at last, withdrawing the tube, 
“this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe ! hard must it go with 
me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, 
not pleasuring, — aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the 
while ; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying 
whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What 
business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for serene- 
ness, to send up mild white vapours among mild white hairs, not among 
torn iron-grey locks like mine. I’ll smoke no more ” 
He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the 
waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe 
made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks. 
CHAPTEE XXX 
QUEEN" MAB 
Next morning Stubb accosted Flask. 
“Such a queer dream, King-post, I never had. You know the old 
man’s ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I 
