475 
THE WHITE WHALE 
about to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have 
been to revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtle skill, in 
a matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the 
old man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though 
clumsily practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious 
sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents. 
“Men,” said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed 
him the things he had demanded, “my men, the thunder turned old 
Ahab’s needles ; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his 
own, that will point as true as any.” 
Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as 
this was said ; and with fascinated eyes they waited whatever magic 
might follow. But Starbuck looked away. 
With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of 
the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, 
bade him hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, 
with the maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, 
he placed the blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly 
hammered that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. 
Then going through some small strange motions with it — whether in- 
dispensable to the magnetising of the steel, or merely intended to aug- 
ment the awe of the crew, is uncertain — he called for linen thread ; and 
moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and 
horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the 
compass-cards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering and 
vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its place, when Ahab, 
who had been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly back 
from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it, ex- 
claimed, — “Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level 
loadstone ! The sun is east, and that compass swears it !” 
One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes 
could persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they 
slunk away. 
In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his 
fatal pride. 
