208 
MOBY DICK; OR 
“Queequeg,” said I when they had dragged me, the last man, to 
the deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the 
water; “Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often 
happen ?” Without much emotion, though soaked through just like 
me, he gave me to understand that such things did often happen. 
“Mr. Stubb,” said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in 
his oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; “Mr. 
Stubb, I think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever 
met, our chief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and 
prudent. I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale with 
your sail set in a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman’s dis- 
cretion ?” 
“Certain. I’ve lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale 
off Cape Horn.” 
“Mr. Flask,” said I, turning to little King-Post, who was stand- 
ing close by; “you are experienced in these things, and I am not. 
Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. 
Flask, for an oarman to break his own back pulling himself back- 
foremost into death’s jaws?” 
“Can’t you twist that smaller?” said Flask. “Yes, that’s the law. 
I should like to see a boat’s crew backing water up to a whale face 
foremost. Ha, ha ! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind 
that!” 
Here then, from three impartial witnesses^ I had a deliberate state- 
ment of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls and 
capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were 
matters of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that 
at the superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must 
resign my life into the hands of him who steered the boat — oftentimes 
a fellow who at that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the 
point of scuttling the craft with his own frantic stampings; consider- 
ing that the particular disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to 
he imputed to Starbuck’s driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of 
a squall, and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous 
for his great heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged 
to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck’s boat ; and finally considering 
in what a devil’s chase I was implicated, touching the White Whale: 
