212 
MOBY DICK; OR 
CHAPTER L 
THE SPIBIT-SPOUT 
Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly 
swept across four several cruising-grounds ; that off the Azores; off the 
Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of the 
Rio de la Plata ; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locality, 
southerly from St. Plelena. 
It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and 
moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; 
and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery 
silence, not a solitude; on such 'a silent night a silvery jet was seen 
far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, 
it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising 
from the sea. Eedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight 
nights, it was his wont to mount to the mainmast head, and stand a 
lookout there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And 
yet, though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in 
a hundred would venture a lowering for them. You may think with 
what emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft 
at such unusual hours; his turban and the moon, companions in one 
sky. But when, after spending his uniform interval there for several 
successive nights without uttering a single sound; when, after all this 
silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moonlit 
jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit 
had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. “There she 
blows !” Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have 
quivered more; yet still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For 
though it was a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and 
so deliriously exciting, that almost every soul on hoard instinctively de- 
sired a lowering. 
Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded 
the t’gallant sails and royals to he set, and every stunsail spread. The 
best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every masthead 
manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange, 
upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows of so 
