493 
THE WHITE WHALE 
one only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with anything in the 
slightest degree approaching to decision — one of those too, whose faith- 
fulness on the lookout he had seemed to doubt somewhat; — it was 
strange, that this was the very man he should select for his watchman ; 
freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person’s 
hand. 
Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there 
ten minutes; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which so often 
fly incommodiously close round the manned mastheads of whalemen 
in these latitudes; one of these birds came wheeling and screaming 
round his head in a maze of untrackably swift circlings. Then it 
darted a thousand feet straight up into the air; then spiralised down- 
wards, and went eddying again round his head. 
But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab 
seemed not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would anyone else 
have marked it much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now 
almost the least heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning 
in almost every sight. 
“Your hat, your hat, sir !” suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman, who 
being posted at the mizzen-masthead, stood directly behind Ahab, 
though somewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf of air 
dividing them. 
But already the sable wing was before the old man’s eyes ; the long 
hooked hill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away 
with his prize. 
CHAPTER CXXX 
THE PEQUOD MEETS THE DELIGHT 
The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; 
the lifebuoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship, most miser- 
ably misnamed the Delight, was descried. As she drew nigh, all eyes 
were fixed upon her broad beams, called shears, which, in some whaling- 
ships, cross the quarterdeck at the height of eight or nine feet; serv- 
ing to carry the spare, unrigged, or disabled boats. 
Upon the stranger’s shears were beheld the shattered, white ribs, 
