518 
MOBY DICK; OR 
On deck there! — brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind’s eye. 
He’s too far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake ! Stand 
over that helmsman with a topmaul ! So, so ; he travels fast, and I must 
down. But let me have one more good round look aloft here at sea; 
there’s time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; 
aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand- 
hills of Nantucket! The same! — the same! — the same to Noah as to 
me. There’s a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! 
They must lead somewhere — to something else than common land, more 
palmy than the palms. Leeward ! the white whale goes that way ; look 
to windward, then; the better if the bitterer quarter. But good-bye, 
good-bye, old masthead ! What’s this ? — green ? ay, tiny mosses in 
these warped cracks. No such green weather stains on Ahab’s head ! 
There’s the difference now between man’s old age and matter’s. But 
aye, old mast, we both grow old together; sound in our hulls, though, 
are we not, my ship ? Aye, minus a leg, that’s all. By heaven ! this 
dead wood has the better of my live flesh every way. I can’t compare 
with it; and I’ve known some ships made of dead trees outlast the lives 
of men made of the most vital stuff of vital fathers. What’s that he 
said ? he should still go before me, my pilot ; and yet to be seen again ? 
But where? Shall I have eyes at the bottom of the sea, supposing I 
descend those endless stairs ? and all night I’ve been sailing from him, 
wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, like many more thou told’st direful 
truth as touching thyself, 0 Parsee; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell 
short. Good-bye, masthead — keep a good eye upon the whale, the 
while I’m gone. We’ll talk to-morrow, nay, to-night, when the white 
whale lies down there, tied by head and tail.” 
He gave the word ; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered 
through the cloven blue air to the deck. 
In due time the boats were lowered ; but as standing in his shallop’s 
stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the 
mate, — who held one of the tackle-ropes on deck — and bade him pause. 
“Starbuck !” 
“Sir ?” 
“For the third time my soul’s ship starts upon this voyage, Star- 
buck.” 
