476 
MOBY DICK; OR 
CHAPTER CXXIY 
THE LOG AND LINE 
While now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage, 
the log and line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a con- 
. fident reliance upon other means of determining the vessel's place, 
some merchantmen, and many whalemen, especially when cruising, 
wholly neglect to heave the log;, though at the same time, and fre- 
quently more for form's sake than anything else, regularly putting 
down upon the customary slate the course steered by the ship, as well 
as the presumed average rate of progression every hour. It had been 
thus with the Pequod. The wooden reel and angular log attached 
hung, long untouched, just beneath the railing of the after bulwarks. 
Rains and spray had damped it ; sun and wind had warped it ; all the 
elements had combined to rot a thing that hung so idly. But heedless 
of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he happened to glance upon the 
reel, not many hours after the magnet scene, and he remembered how 
his quadrant was no more, and recalled his frantic oath about the level 
log and line. The ship was sailing plungingly; astern the billows 
rolled in riots. 
“Forward, there ! Heave the log !" 
Two seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the grizzly 
Manxman. “Take the reel, one of ye, I'll heave." 
They went towards the extreme stern, on the ship's leeside, where the 
deck with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into 
the creamy, sidelong-rushing sea. 
The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up by the project- 
ing handle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved, 
so stood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab advanced 
to him. 
Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or 
forty turns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, when 
the old Manxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, 
made bold to speak. 
“Sir, I mistrust it ; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet have 
spoiled it,” 
