291 
THE WHITE WHALE 
a being than the Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the 
Bible. But when, some year or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly 
sighted from the mastheads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with ardour 
to encounter him; and the captain himself being not unwilling to let 
him have the opportunity despite all the archangel’s denunciations 
and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five men to man his 
boat. With them he pushed off; and, after much weary pulling, and 
many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last succeeded in getting 
one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the main-royal mast- 
head, was tossing one arm in frantic^ gestures, and hurling forth 
prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity. 
Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat’s bow, and 
with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclama- 
tions upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised 
lance, lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fan- 
ning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the 
oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full of furious life, 
was smitten bodily into the air, and making a long arc in his descent, 
fell into the sea at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a chip of 
the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any of the oarsmen’s head; but 
the mate for ever sank. 
(It is well to parenthesise here, that of the fatal accidents in the 
Sperm Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any. 
Sometimes nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated; 
oftener the boat’s bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, in which the 
headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. 
But strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than 
one, when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence 
is discernible; the man being stark dead.) 
The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly 
descried from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek — “The vial! the 
vial !” Gabriel called off the terror-stricken crew from the further 
hunting of the whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with 
added influence; because his credulous disciples believed that he had 
specifically fore-announced it, instead of only making a general 
prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have chanced to hit 
