For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too
analytic to be verbally developed here, Ahab plainly
saw that he must still in a good degree continue true
to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod’s
voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only
that, but force himself to evince all his well known
passionate interest in the general pursuit of his
profession.
Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard
hailing the three mastheads and admonishing them to
keep a bright look-out, and not omit reporting even
a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without
reward.
The Mat-Maker
It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were
lazily lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing
over into the lead-colored waters. Queequeg and
I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat,
for an additional lashing to our boat. So still
and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the
scene, and such an incantation of revelry lurked in
the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into
his own invisible self.
I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy
at the mat. As I kept passing and repassing the
filling or woof of marline between the long yarns
of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and
as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid
his heavy oaken sword between the threads, and idly
looking off upon the water, carelessly and unthinkingly
drove home every yarn; I say so strange a dreaminess
did there then reign all over the ship and all over
the sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound
of the sword, that it seemed as if this were the Loom
of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically
weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There
lay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but one
single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and
that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise
interblending of other threads with its own.
This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with
my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own
destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime,
Queequeg’s impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes
hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly,
or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference
in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast
in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this
savage’s sword, thought I, which thus finally
shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this easy,
indifferent sword must be chance— aye,
chance, free will, and necessity—no wise
incompatible— all interweavingly working
together. The straight warp of necessity, not
to be swerved from its ultimate course—
its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending
to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between
given threads; and chance, though restrained in its
play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways
in its motions directed by free will, though thus
prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either,
and has the last featuring blow at events.
