458 
MOBY DICK; OR 
“Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee: — a hearse and its plumes 
floating over the ocean with the waves for the pallbearers. H*a ! Such 
a sight we shall not soon see.” 
“Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man.” 
“And what was that saying about thyself?” 
“Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot.” 
“And when thou art so gone before — if that ever befall — then ere 
I can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still? — Was it 
not so ? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot ! I have 
here two pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it.” 
“Take another pledge, old man,” said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted 
up like fire-flies in the gloom — “Hemp only can kill thee.” 
“The gallows, ye mean — I am immortal then, on land and on sea,” 
cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision; — “Immortal on land and on 
sea!” 
Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came. on, and 
the slumbering crew arose from the boat’s bottom, and ere noon the 
dead whale was brought to the ship. 
CHAPTER CXVII 
THE QUADRANT 
The season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when 
Ahab, coming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helms- 
man would ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners 
quickly run to the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes 
centrally fixed on the nailed doubloon ; impatient for the order to point 
the ship’s prow for the equator. In good time the order came. It 
was hard upon high noon; and Ahab, seated in the hows of his high- 
hoisted boat, was about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun 
to determine his latitude. 
How, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of 
effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing 
focus of the glassy ocean’s immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks 
lacquered ; clouds there are none ; the horizon floats ; and this nakedness 
