207 
THE WHITE WHALE 
muffled by the storm. The sound came nearer and nearer; the thick 
mists were dimly parted by a huge vague form. Affrighted, we all 
sprang into the sea as the ship at last loomed into view, hearing 
right down upon us within distance of not much more than its length. 
Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one in- 
stant it tossed and gaped beneath the ship’s bows like a chip at the 
base of a cataract ; and then the vast hull rolled over it, and it was 
seen no more till it came up weltering astern. Again we swam for 
it, were dashed against it by the seas, and were at last taken up and 
safely landed on board. Ere the squall came close to, the other boats 
had cut loose from their fish and returned to the ship in good time. 
The ship had given us up, but was still cruising, if haply it might 
light upon some token of our perishing, — an oar or a lance pole. 
CHAPTER XLVIII 
THE HYENA 
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed 
affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast 
practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and 
more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own. 
However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. 
He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, 
all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as 
an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. 
And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden dis- 
aster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him 
only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed 
by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of way- 
ward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time 
of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, 
so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most 
momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. There is 
nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort 
of genial, desperado philosophy ; and with it I now regarded this whole 
voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object. 
