THE WHITE WHALE W9 
come ? But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows ! 
Yet not so much predictions from without, as verifications of the fore- 
going things within. For with little external to constrain us, the 
innermost necessities in our being, these still drive us on. 
“The measure! the measure!” cried Ahah. 
Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he 
ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before 
him near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his 
three mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship’s 
company formed a circle round the group; he stood for an instant 
searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met 
his, as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their 
leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but, 
alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian. 
“Drink and pass !” he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to 
the nearest seaman. “The crew alone now drink. Bound with it, 
round ! Short draughts — long swallows, men ; ’tis hot as Satan’s hoof. 
So, so; it goes round excellently. It spiralises in ye; forks out 
at the serpenLsnapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way 
it went, this way it comes. Hand it me — here’s a hollow ! Men, ye 
seem the years ; so brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill ! 
“Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan ; 
and ye mates, flank me with your lances and ye harpooneers, stand 
there with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I 
may in some sort revive an old custom of my fishermen fathers before 
me. O men, you will yet see that Ha ! boy, come back ? bad pennies 
come not sooner. Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brim- 
ming again, wert not thou St. Vitus’ imp — away, thou ague! 
“Advance, ye mates ! Cross your lances full before me. Well done ! 
Let me touch the axis.” So saying, with extended arm, he grasped 
the three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre ; while so doing, 
suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently 
from Starbuck to Stubb ; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, 
by some nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into 
them the same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of 
his own magnetic life. The three mates quailed before his strong, 
