473 
THE WHITE WHALE 
world boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the 
invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; 
where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of 
crowned Babylonian kings and queens, reigned over everything. The 
sea was as a crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light 
and heat. 
Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart ; and 
every time the teetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, 
he turned to eye the bright sun’s rays produced ahead; and when she 
profoundly settled by the stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun’s 
rearward place, and how the same yellow rays were blending with his 
undeviating wake. 
“Ha, ha, my ship ! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea- 
chariot of the sun. Ho,, ho ! all ye nations before my prow, I bring 
the sun to ye ! Yoke on the further billows ; hallo ! a tandem, I drive 
the sea !” 
But suddenly reigned back by some counter thought, he hurried 
towards the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading. 
“East-sou’-east, sir,” said the frightened steersman. 
“Thou liest!” smiting him with his clenched fist. “Heading east 
at this hour in the morning, and the sun astern ?” 
Upon this every soul was confounded ; for the phenomenon just then 
observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its 
very blinding palpableness must have been the cause. 
Thrusting his head half-way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one 
glimpse of the compass ; his uplifted arm slowly fell ; for a moment he 
almost seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, 
and lo ! the two compasses pointed east, and the Pequod was as infal- 
libly going west. 
But ere the first wild alarm could get out aboard among the crew, 
the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, “I have it ! It has happened 
before. Mr. Starbuck, last night’s thunder turned our compasses — 
that’s all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it.” 
“Aye ; but never before has it happened to me, sir,” said the pale 
mate gloomily. 
Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more 
