“Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, my little ones,” drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some of whom still showed signs of uneasiness.  “Why don’t you break your backbones, my boys?  What is it you stare at?  Those chaps in yonder boat?  Tut!  They are only five more hands come to help us never mind from where the more the merrier.  Pull, then, do pull; never mind the brimstone devils are good fellows enough.  So, so; there you are now; that’s the stroke for a thousand pounds; that’s the stroke to sweep the stakes!  Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes!  Three cheers, men—­all hearts alive!  Easy, easy; don’t be in a hurry—­ don’t be in a hurry.  Why don’t you snap your oars, you rascals?  Bite something, you dogs!  So, so, so, then:—­softly, softly!  That’s it—­that’s it! long and strong.  Give way there, give way!  The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are all asleep.  Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull.  Pull, will ye? pull, can’t ye? pull, won’t ye?  Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes don’t ye pull?—­pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes out!  Here,” whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; “every mother’s son of ye draw his knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth.  That’s it—­that’s it.  Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits.  Start her—­ start her, my silverspoons!  Start her, marling-spikes!”

Stubb’s exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in inculcating the religion of rowing.  But you must not suppose from this specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew into downright passions with his congregation.  Not at all; and therein consisted his chief peculiarity.  He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a tone so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed so calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman could hear such queer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling for the mere joke of the thing.  Besides he all the time looked so easy and indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so broadly gaped—­ open-mouthed at times—­that the mere sight of such a yawning commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon the crew.  Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists, whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them.

In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely across Stubb’s bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate.

“Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye please!”

“Halloa!” returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his face set like a flint from Stubb’s.