THE WHITE WHALE 
295 
you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by ex- 
ceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous 
other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg’ s monkey-rope heed- 
fully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near 
sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I 
would, I only had the management of one end of it . 1 
I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between 
the whale and the ship — where he would occasionally fall, from the 
incessant rolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only 
jamming jeopardy he was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre 
made upon them during the night, the sharks now freshly apd more 
keenly allured by the before pent blood which began to flow from 
the carcase — the rabid creatures swarmed round it like bees in a 
beehive. 
And right in among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed 
them aside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible 
were it not that, attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise 
miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man. 
Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a 
ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to them. 
Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and then 
jerked the poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of what 
seemed a peculiarly ferocious shark — he was provided with still an- 
other protection. Suspended over the side in one of the stages, 
Tashtego and Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of 
keen whale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as 
they could reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very dis- 
interested and benevolent of them. They meant Queequeg’s best 
happiness, I admit; but in their hasty zeal to befriend him, and 
from the circumstance that both he and the sharks were at times half 
hidden by the blood-mudded water, those indiscreet spades of theirs 
would come nearer amputating a leg than a tail. But poor Queequeg, 
1 The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in the Pequod 
that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This improve- 
ment upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man than Stubb, 
in order to afford the imperilled harpooneer the strongest possible guarantee 
for the faithfulness and vigilance pf his monkey-rope holder, 
