269 
THE WHITE WHALE 
and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking links, 
the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by the head 
to the stem, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies with its 
black hull to the vessel’s, and seen through the darkness of the night, 
which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two — ship and whaje 
— seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines 
while the other remains standing . 1 
If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be 
known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, be- 
trayed an unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an un- 
wonted bustle was he in, that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, 
quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management of affairs. 
One small, helping cause of all this liveliness in Stubb was soon made 
strangely manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat in- 
temperately fond of the whale as a flavourish thing to his palate. 
“A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, 
and cut me one from his small !” 
Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a 
general thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the 
enemy defray the current expenses of the war (at least before realising 
the proceeds of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these 
Nantucketers who have a genuine relish for that particular part of 
the Sperm Whale designated by Stubb ; comprising the tapering extrem- 
ity of the body. 
About midnight that steak was cut and cooked ; and lighted by two 
lanterns of Sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper at 
1 A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most 
reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside, 
is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part is relatively 
heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its flexibility even in death, 
causes it to sink low beneath the surface; so that with the hand you cannot 
got at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it. But this difficulty 
is ingeniously overcome: a small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float 
at its outer end, and a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured 
to the ship. By adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the 
other side of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is 
readily made to follow suit: and being slipped along the body, is at last 
locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with 
its broad flukes or lobes. 
