478 
MOBY DICK; OR 
off ; we haul in no cowards here. Ho ! there’s his arm just breaking 
water. A hatchet ! a hatchet ! cut it off — we haul in no cowards here. 
Captain Ahab ! sir, sir ! here’s Pip, trying to get on board again.” 
“Peace, thou crazy loon,” cried the Manxman, seizing him by the 
arm. “Away from the quarter-deck !” 
“The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser,” muttered Ahab, advancing. 
“Hands off from that holiness! Where sayest thou Pip was, boy?” 
“Astern there, sir, astern! Lo, lo!” 
“And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflection in the vacant 
pupils of thy eyes. Oh God ! that man should be a thing for immortal 
souls to sieve through ! Who art thou, boy ?” 
“Bell-boy, sir; ship’s-crier ; ding, dong, ding! Pip! Pip! Pip! 
One hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip; five feet high — looks 
cowardly — quickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding! Who’s seen 
Pip the coward ?” 
“There can be no hearts above the snowline. Oh, ye frozen heavens ! 
look down here. Ye did beget this luckless child, and have abandoned 
him, ye creative libertines. Here, boy; Ahab’s cabin shall be Pip’s 
home henceforth, while Ahab lives. Thou touches my inmost centre, 
boy; thou art tied to me by cords woven of my heart-strings. Come, 
let’s down.” 
“What’s this? here’s velvet sharkskin,” intently gazing at Ahab’s 
hand, and feeling it. “Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing 
as this, perhaps he had ne’er been lost! This seems to me, sir, as a 
man-rope; something that weak souls may hold by. Oh, sir, let old 
Perth now come and rivet these two hands together ; the black one with 
the white, for I will not let this go.” 
“Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse 
horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo ! ye believers in 
gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo, you ! see the omniscient gods 
oblivious of suffering man ; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not 
what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come ! 
I feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped 
an Emperor’s!” 
“There go two daft ones now,” muttered the old Manxman. “One 
daft with strength, the other daft with weakness. But here’s the end 
