486 
MOBY DICK; OR 
last seen — though she then paused to lower her spare boats to pull all 
around her; and not finding anything, had again dashed on; again 
paused, and lowered her boats; and though she had thus continued 
doing till daylight; yet not the least glimpse of the missing keel had 
been seen. 
The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal 
his object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with 
his own in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five miles 
apart, on parallel lines,, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were. 
“I will wager something now,” whispered Stubb to Flask, “that some 
one in that missing boat wore off that Captain’s best coat ; mayhap, his 
watch — he’s so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two 
pious whale ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height 
of the whaling season ? See, Flask, only see how pale he looks — pale 
in the very buttons of his eyes — look — it wasn’t the coat — it must have 
been the ” 
“My boy, my own boy is among them. For God’s sake — I beg, I 
conjure” — here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far 
had but icily received his ‘petition. “For eight-and-forty hours let 
me charter your ship — I will gladly pay for it,, and roundly pay for it 
— if there be no other way — for eight-and-forty hours only — only that 
— you must, oh, you must, and you shall do this thing.” 
“His son !” cried Stubb, “oh, it’s his son he’s lost ! I take back the 
coat and watch — what says Ahab ? We must save that boy.” 
“He’s drowned with the rest on ’em, last night,” said the old 
Manx sailor standing behind them; “I heard; all of ye heard their 
spirits.” 
Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel's 
the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the 
Captain’s sons among the number of the missing boat’s crew; but 
among the number of the other boats’ crews at the same time, but on 
the other hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes 
of the chase, there had been still another son; as that for a time, the 
wretched father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity ; 
which was only solved for him by his chief mate’s instinctively adopting 
the ordinary procedure of a whale ship in such emergencies, that is, 
