450 
MOBY DICK; OR 
one, by spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron 
bolt. “A flaw!” rejecting the last one. “Work that over again, 
Perth.” 
This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, 
when Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, 
then, with regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth 
passing to him the glowing rods, one after the other, and the hard 
pressed forge shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee passed 
silently, and bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking 
some curse or some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he 
slid aside. 
“What’s that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for ?” muttered 
Stubb, looking on from the forecastle. “That Parsee smells fire like a 
fusee ; and smells of it himself, like a hot musket’s powder-pan.” 
At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat ; and as 
Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near 
by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab’s bent face. 
“Wouldst thou brand me, Perth?” wincing for a moment with the 
pain ; “have I been but forging my own branding iron, then ?” 
“Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not 
this harpoon for the White Whale ?” 
“For the white-fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make 
them, thyself, man. Here are my razors — the best of steel ; here, and 
make the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea.” 
For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would 
fain not use them. 
“Take them, man, I have no need for them ; for I now neither shave, 
sup, nor pray till but here — to work!” 
Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the 
shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron ; and as the blacksmith 
was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he 
cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near. 
“Ho, no — no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. 
Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! 
Will ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb ?” holding it high 
up. A cluster of dark nods replied, “Yes.” Three punctures were 
