“Look here, friend,” said I, “if
you have anything important to tell us, out with it;
but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are
mistaken in your game; that’s all I have to
say.”
“And it’s said very well, and I like to
hear a chap talk up that way; you are just the man
for him—the likes of ye. Morning to
ye, shipmates, morning! Oh! when ye get there,
tell ’em I’ve concluded not to make one
of ’em.”
“Ah, my dear fellow, you can’t fool us
that way—you can’t fool us.
It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look
as if he had a great secret in him.”
“Morning to ye, shipmates, morning.”
“Morning it is,” said I. “Come
along, Queequeg, let’s leave this crazy man.
But stop, tell me your name, will you?”
“Elijah.”
Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting,
after each other’s fashion, upon this ragged
old sailor; and agreed that he was nothing but a humbug,
trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone perhaps
above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner,
and looking back as I did so, who should be seen but
Elijah following us, though at a distance. Somehow,
the sight of him struck me so, that I said nothing
to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with
my comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would
turn the same corner that we did. He did; and
then it seemed to me that he was dogging us, but with
what intent I could not for the life of me imagine.
This circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting,
half-revealing, shrouded sort of talk, now begat in
me all kinds of vague wonderments and half-apprehensions,
and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain Ahab;
and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and
the silver calabash; and what Captain Peleg had said
of him, when I left the ship the day previous; and
the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the voyage
we had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other
shadowy things.
I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged
Elijah was really dogging us or not, and with that
intent crossed the way with Queequeg, and on that
side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed
on, without seeming to notice us. This relieved
me; and once more, and finally as it seemed to me,
I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug.
All Astir
A day or two passed, and there was great activity
aboard the Pequod. Not only were the old sails
being mended, but new sails were coming on board,
and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short,
everything betokened that the ship’s preparations
were hurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom
or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping
a sharp look-out upon the hands: Bildad did all
the purchasing and providing at the stores; and the
men employed in the hold and on the rigging were working
till long after night-fall.
