THE WHITE WHALE 
297 
pooneer ; none of your apothecary’s medicine here ; you want to poison 
us, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want to 
murder us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye ?” 
“It was not me,” cried Dough-Boy, “it was Aunt Charity that 
brought the ginger on hoard; and bade me never give the harpoon- 
eers any spirits, but only this ginger-jub — so she called it.” 
“Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with 
ye to the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, 
Mr. Starbuck. It is the captain’s orders — grog for the harpooneer on 
a whale.” 
“Enough,” replied Starbuck, “only don’t hit him again, hut ” 
“Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or some- 
thing of that sort; and this fellow’s a weasel. What were you about 
saying, sir?” 
“Only this : go down with him and get what thou wantest thyself.” 
When Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one hand, and 
a sort of tea-caddy in the other. The first contained strong spirits, 
and was handed to Queequeg; the second was Aunt Charity’s gift, 
and that was freely given to the waves. 
CHAP TEE LXXII 
STUBB AND FLASK KILL A RIGHT WHALE; AND THEN HAVE A 
TALK OVER HIM 
It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm Whale’s 
prodigious head hanging to the Pequod’s side. But we must let it 
continue hanging there awhile till we can get a chance to attend to it. 
For the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for 
the head, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold. 
Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had grad- 
ually drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of yellow brit, 
gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Bight Whales, a species of the 
Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking 
anvwhere near. And though all hands commonly disdained the cap- 
ture of those inferior creatures ; and though the Pequod was not com- 
