158 MOBY DICK; OR 
ceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, else come satiety. Eh, 
Pagan? {Nudging.) 
tahitan sailor {reclining on a mat ) 
Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls ! — the Heeva-Heeva ! Ah ! 
low-veiled, high-palmed Tahiti! I still rest me on thy mat, but the 
soft soil has slid ! I saw thee woven in the wood, my mat ! green the 
first day I brought ye thence ; now worn and wilted quite. Ah me ! — 
not thou nor I can hear the change ! How then, if so be transplanted 
to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from Pirohitee’s peak of 
spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the villages! — The 
blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! {Leaps to his feet.) 
PORTUGUESE SAILOR 
How the sea rolls swashing ’gainst the side! Stand by for reefing, 
hearties ! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell they’ll go lung- 
ing presently. 
DANISH SAILOR 
Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdestl Well 
done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly/ He’s no more afraid than 
the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic with storm-lashed 
guns, on which the sea-salt cakes! 
t 
FOURTH NANTUCKET SAILOR 
He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab tell him he must 
always kill a squall, something as they hurst a waterspout with a pistol 
— fire your ship right into it ! 
ENGLISH SAILOR 
Blood! but that old man’s a grand old cove! We are the lads to 
hunt him up his whale ! 
Aye! aye! 
ALL 
