470 
MOBY DICK; OR 
Pequod’s ; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice 
the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards; it is 
a sight that hardly any one can behold without some sort of unwonted 
emotion. 
Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that 
through the strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb — one en- 
gaged forward and the other aft — the shivered remnants of the jib and 
fore and maintopsails were cut adrift from the spars, and went eddy- 
ing away to leeward, like the feathers of an albatross, which some- 
times are cast to the winds when that storm-tossed bird is on the wing. 
The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and 
a storm-trysail was set further aft ; so that the ship soon went through 
the water with some precision again; and the course — for the present, 
east-south-east — which he was to steer, if practicable, was once more 
given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the gale,, he had 
only steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing 
the ship as near her course as possible, watching the compass mean- 
while, lo ! a good sign ! the wind seemed coming round astern ; aye, the 
foul breeze became fair ! 
Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of “Ho! the fair 
wind! oh-he-yo , cheerily men !” the crew singing for joy, that so prom- 
ising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents preceding 
it. 
In compliance with the standing order of his commander — to report 
immediately, and at every one of the twenty-four hours, any decided 
change in the affairs of the deck, — Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the 
yards to the breeze — however reluctantly and gloomily, — than he me- 
chanically went below to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance. 
Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before it a 
moment. The cabin lamp — taking long swings this way and that — 
was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man’s 
bolted door, — a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper 
panels. The isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain 
humming silence to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the 
roar of the elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly 
revealed, as they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck 
