“Thou art too damned jolly.  Sail on.  Hast lost any men?”

“Not enough to speak of—­two islanders, that’s all;—­but come aboard, old hearty, come along.  I’ll soon take that black from your brow.  Come along, will ye (merry’s the play); a full ship and homeward-bound.”

“How wondrous familiar is a fool!” muttered Ahab; then aloud, “Thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayest; well, then, call me an empty ship, and outward-bound.  So go thy ways, and I will mine.  Forward there!  Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!”

And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the receding Bachelor; but the Bachelor’s men never heeding their gaze for the lively revelry they were in.  And as Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the homewardbound craft, he took from his pocket a small vial of sand, and then looking from the ship to the vial, seemed thereby bringing two remote associations together, for that vial was filled with Nantucket soundings.

CHAPTER 116

The Dying Whale

Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune’s favorites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out.  So seemed it with the Pequod.  For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor, whales were seen and four were slain; and one of them by Ahab.

It was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of the crimson fight were done; and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky, sun and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, that it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of the Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had gone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns.

Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the now tranquil boat.  For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm whales dying—­the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring—­ that strange spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a wondrousness unknown before.

“He turns and turns him to it,—­how slowly, but how steadfastly, his homage-rendering and invoking brow, with his last dying motions.  He too worships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun!—­ Oh that these too-favoring eyes should see these too-favoring sights.  Look! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum of human weal or woe; in these most candid and impartial seas; where to traditions no rocks furnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still rolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the Niger’s unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith, but see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it heads some other way.