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MOBY DICK; OR 
ladder was being rigged by Starbuck’s order to accommodate the visit- 
ing captain, the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat’s 
stern in token of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It 
turned out that the Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, 
and that Mayhew, her captain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod' s 
company. For, though himself and boat’s crew remained untainted, 
and though his ship was half a rifle-shot off, and an incorruptible sea 
and air rolling and flowing between; yet conscientiously adhering 
to the timid quarantine of the land, he peremptorily refused to come 
into direct contact with the Pequod. 
But this did by no means prevent all communication. Preserving 
an interval of some few yards between itself and the ships, the Jero- 
boam's boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel 
to the Pequod , as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this 
time it blew very fresh), with her maintop sail aback; though, indeed, 
at times by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be 
pushed some way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her 
proper bearings again. Subject to this, and other like interruptions 
now and then, a conversation was sustained between the two parties; 
but at intervals not without still another interruption of a very differ- 
ent sort. 
Pulling an oar in* the Jeroboams boat, was a man of singular 
appearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual notabil- 
ities make up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish man, 
sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant yel- 
low hair. A long-skirted, cabalistically cut coat of a faded walnut 
tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves of which were' rolled 
up on his wrists. A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes. 
So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed 
— “That’s he! that’s he! — the long-togged scaramouch the Town-Ho's 
company told us of!” Stubb here alluded to a strange story told of the 
Jeroboam , and a certain man among her crew, some time previous 
when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this account and 
what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in 
question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody 
in the Jeroboam. His story was this: 
He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Hesk- 
