THE WHITE WHALE 
403 
In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and his 
crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the 
stranger. But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the ex- 
citement of the moment Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his leg 
he had never once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his own, 
and then it was always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical 
contrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and 
shipped in any other vessel at a moment’s warning. Now, it is no very 
easy matter for anybody — except those who are almost hourly used to 
it, like whalemen — to clamber up a ship’s side from a boat on the open 
sea ; for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks, 
and then instantaneously drop it half-way down to the kelson. So, de- 
prived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether un- 
supplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly 
reduced to a clumsy landsman again, hopelessly eyeing the uncertain 
changeful height he could hardly hope to attain. 
It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward circum- 
stance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his luckless 
mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And in the 
present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the two offi- 
cers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the perpendicular 
ladder of nailed cleats there, and swimming towards him a pair of 
tastefully ornamented manropes; for at first they did not seem to be- 
think them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to 
use their sea banisters. But this awkwardness only lasted a minute, 
because the strange captain, observing at a glance how affairs stood, 
cried out : “I see, I see ! — vast heaving there ! Jump, boys, and swing 
over the cutting-tackle.” 
As good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day 
or two previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive 
curved blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end. 
This was quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once comprehended it all, 
slid his solitary thigh into the curve of the hook (it was like sitting in 
the fluke of an anchor, or the crotch of an apple tree), and then 
giving the word, held himself fast, and at the same time also helped to 
hoist his own weight, by pulling hand over hand upon one of the run- 
