from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge—­pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him.  And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol.  Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt? ..

CHAPTER 43

Hark!

“Hist!  Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?

It was the middle-watch:  a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail.  In this manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt.  Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet.  From hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the unceasingly advancing keel.

It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the cordon, whose post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his neighbor, a Cholo, the words above.

“Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?”

“Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d’ye mean?”

“There it is again—­under the hatches—­don’t you hear it—­a cough—­ it sounded like a cough.”

“Cough be damned!  Pass along that return bucket.”

“There again—­there it is!—­it sounds like two or three sleepers turning over, now!”

“Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye?  It’s the three soaked biscuits ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye—­nothing else.  Look to the bucket!”

“Say what ye will, shipmate; I’ve sharp ears.”

“Aye, you are the chap, ain’t ye, that heard the hum of the old Quakeress’s knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket; you’re the chap.”

“Grin away; we’ll see what turns up.  Hark ye, Cabaco, there is somebody down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck; and I suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too.  I heard Stubb tell Flask, one morning watch, that there was something of that sort in the wind.”

“Tish! the bucket!”

CHAPTER 44

The Chart