THE WHITE WHALE 217 
more of deep helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before 
evinced. But turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding 
the ship in the wind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his 
old lion voice, — “Up helm! Keep her off round the world!” 
Bound the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud 
feelings ; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct ? Only 
through numberless perils to the very pgint whence we started, where 
those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us. 
Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could 
for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange 
than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise 
in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, 
or in tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, 
swims before all human hearts — while chasing such over this round 
globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us 
whelmed. 
CHAPTEB LII 
THE GAM 
The ostensible reason why Ahah did not go on hoard of the whaler 
we had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But 
even had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have 
boarded her — judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions 
— if so it had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained 
a negative answer to the question he put. Bor, as it eventually turned 
out, he cared not to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger 
captain, except he could contribute some of that information he so 
absorbingly sought. But all this might remain inadequately estimated, 
w r ere not something said here of the peculiar usages of whaling vessels 
when meeting each other in foreign seas, and especially on a common 
cruising-ground. 
If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in Kew York State, or 
the equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England ; if casually encounter- 
ing each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for the life of 
