THE WHITE WHALE m 
was an honest, upright man ; but out of Starbuck’s heart, at that instant 
when he saw the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought ; 
but so blent with its neutral or good accompaniments that for the in- 
stant he hardly knew it for itself. 
‘He would have shot me once,” he murmured; “yes, there’s the 
very musket that he pointed at me ; — that one with the studded stock ; 
let me touch it lift it. Strange, that I, who have handled so many 
deadly lances, strange, that I should shake so now. Loaded ? I must 
see. Aye, aye; and powder in the pan; — that’s not good. Best spill 
it ? wait. I’ll cure myself of this. I’ll hold the musket boldly 
while I think — I come to report a fair wind to him. But how fair? 
Fair for death and doom, — that’s fair for Moby Dick. It’s a fair 
wind that’s only fair for that accursed fish. The very tube he pointed 
at me ! — the very one ; this one — I hold it here ; he would have killed 
me with the very thing I handle now — Aye, and he would fain kill all 
his crew. Does he not say he will not strike his spars to any gale? 
Has he not dashed his heavenly quadrant ? and in these same perilous 
seas, gropes he not his way by mere dead reckoning of the error- 
abounding log? and in this very Typhoon, did he not swear that he 
would have no lightning-rods ? But shall this crazed old man be 
tamely suffered to drag a whole ship’s company down to doom with 
him? — Yes, it would make him the wilful murderer of thirty men and 
more, if this ship comes to any deadly harm; and come to deadly harm, 
my soul swears this ship will, if Ahab have his way. If, then, he 
were this instant — put aside, that crime would not be his. Ha! is he 
muttering in his sleep? Yes,, just there, — in there, he’s sleeping. 
Sleeping? aye, but still alive, and soon awake again. I can’t with- 
stand thee, then, old man. Hot reasoning; not remonstrance; not 
entreaty wilt thou hearken to; all this thou scomest. Flat obedience 
to thy own flat commands, this is all thou breathest. Aye, and say’st 
the men have vow’d thy vow; say’st all of us are Ahabs. Great God 
forbid ! — But is there no other way ? no lawful way ? — Make him a 
prisoner to be taken home? What! hope to wrest this old man’s 
living power from his own living hands ? Only a fool would try it. 
Say he were pinioned even ; knotted all over with ropes and hawsers ; 
chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor ; he would be more hide- 
