of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive
to the importance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining
his legs. Nor is this any very easy matter; for
in his rear is the immense projecting steering oar
hitting him now and then in the small of his back,
the after-oar reciprocating by rapping his knees in
front. He is thus completely wedged before and
behind, and can only expand himself sideways by settling
down on his stretched legs; but a sudden, violent
pitch of the boat will often go far to topple him,
because length of foundation is nothing without corresponding
breadth. Merely make a spread angle of two poles,
and you cannot stand them up. Then, again, it
would never do in plain sight of the world’s
riveted eyes, it would never do, I say, for this straddling
captain to be seen steadying himself the slightest
particle by catching hold of anything with his hands;
indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command,
he generally carries his hands in his trowsers’
pockets; but perhaps being generally very large, heavy
hands, he carries them there for ballast. Nevertheless
there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones
too, where the captain has been known for an uncommonly
critical moment or two, in a sudden squall say—to
seize hold of the nearest oarsman’s hair, and
hold on there like grim death.
CHAPTER 54
The Town-Ho’s Story
(As told at the Golden Inn)
The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round
about there, is much like some noted four corners
of a great highway, where you meet more travellers
than in any other part.
It was not very long after speaking the Goney that
another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was
encountered. She was manned almost wholly by
Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she
gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the
general interest in the White Whale was now wildly
heightened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho’s
story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale
a certain wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those
so called judgments of God which at times are said
to overtake some men. This latter circumstance,
with its own particular accompaniments, forming what
may be called the secret part of the tragedy about
to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain
Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the
story was unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself.
It was the private property of three confederate
white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems,
communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions
of secrecy, but the following night Tashtego rambled
in his sleep, and revealed so much of it in that way,
that when he was wakened he could not well withhold
the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence
did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod
who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such
a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed
in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves
so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod’s
main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this
darker thread with the story as publicly narrated
on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now
proceed to put on lasting record.
