200 
MOBY DICK; OR 
In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely 
across Stubb’s bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were 
pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate. 
“Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if 
ye please!” 
“Holloa !” returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he 
spoke ; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew ; his face set like 
a flint from Stubb’s. 
“What think ye of those yellow boys, sir ?” 
“Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong, 
strong boys !” in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again) 
“A sad business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but 
never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, 
come what will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There’s hogsheads of 
sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that’s what ye came for. (Pull, my 
boys!) Sperm, sperm’s the play! This at least is duty; duty and 
profit hand in hand !” 
“Ay, ay, I thought as much,” soliloquised Stubb, when the boats 
diverged, “as soon as I clapt eye on ’em, I thought so. Ay, and that’s 
what he went into the after-hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy long sus- 
pected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale’s at the 
bottom of it. Well, well, so be it! Can’t be helped! All right! 
Give way, men ! It ain’t the White Whale today ! Give way !” 
How the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical in- 
stant as the lowering of the boat from the deck, this had not unreason- 
ably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship’s 
company; but Archy’s fancied discovery having some time, previous 
got abroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had 
in some small measure prepared them for the event. It took off the 
extreme edge of their wonder; and so what with all this and Stubb’s 
confident way of accounting for their appearance, they were for the 
time freed from superstitious surmisings; though the affair still left 
abundant room for all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab’s 
precise agency in the matter from the beginning. Eor me, I silently 
recalled the mysterious shadows I had seen creeping on board the 
Pequod during the dim Hantucket dawn, as well as the enigmatical 
hintings of the unaccountable Elijah. 
