THE WHITE WHALE i»5 
gree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod’s voy- 
age ; observe all customary usages ; and not only that, but force himself 
to evince all his well-known passionate interest in the general pursuit of 
his profession. 
Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three 
mastheads and admonishing them to keep a bright lookout, and not 
omit reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without 
reward. 
CHAPTER XLVI 
THE' MAT-MAKE® 
It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging 
about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-coloured waters. 
Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword- 
mat, for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and 
yet somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of 
reverie lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his 
own invisible self. 
I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As 
I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between the 
long yarns of the warps, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as 
Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword 
between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly 
and unthinkingly drove home every yarn : I say so strange a dreaminess 
did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken 
by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this 
were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically 
weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads 
of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vi- 
bration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise 
interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed neces- 
sity; and here, thought I, with my own hand, I ply my own shuttle 
and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, 
Queequeg’s impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof 
slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be ; 
