216 
MOBY DICK; OR 
with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it was 
to see her long-bearded lookouts at those three mastheads. They seemed 
clad in the skins of beasts, so tom and bepatched the raiment that had 
survived nearly four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops nailed 
to the mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea ; and though, 
when the ship slowly glided close under our stern, we six men in the 
air came so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped from 
the mastheads of one ship to those of the other; yet, those forlorn-look- 
ing fishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not one word to 
our own lookouts, while the quarter-deck hail was being heard from be- 
low. 
“Ship ahoy ! Have ye seen the White Whale V ’ 
But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in 
the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his 
hand into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove 
to make himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increas- 
ing the distance between. While in various silent ways the seamen of 
the Pequod were evincing their observance of this ominous incident 
at the first mere mention of the White Whale’s name to another ship, 
Ahab for a moment paused ; it almost seemed as though he would have 
lowered a boat to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind 
forbade. But taking advantage of his windward position, he again 
seized his trumpet, and knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel 
was a Nantucketer and shortly bound home, he loudly hailed — “Ahoy 
there! This is the Pequod , hound round the world! Tell them to 
address all future letters to the Pacific Ocean! and this time three 
years, if I am not at home, tell them to address them to ” 
At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly, 
then, in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless 
fish, that for some days before had been placidly swimming by our 
side, darted away with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged them- 
selves, fore and aft with the stranger’s flanks. Though in the course 
of his continual voyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a simi- 
lar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously 
carry meanings. 
“Swim away from me, do ye?” murmured Ahab, gazing over into 
the water. There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed 
