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Table of Contents
Chapter 47
THE MAT-MAKER
It was a cloudy, sultry
afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing
over into the lead-colored waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving
what is called a sword-mat, for an additional lashing to our boat. So still
and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an
incantation of revery lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed
resolved into his own invisible self. I was the attendant or page of Queequeg,
while busy at the mat. As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of
marline between the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle,
and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword
between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly and
unthinkingly drove home every yarn: I say so strange a dreaminess did there
then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by the
intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were the Loom
of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at
the Fates. There lay the fixed ..
2 threads of the warp
subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and that
vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of other
threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my
own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable
threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting
the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might
be; and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding
contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage's sword,
thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this
easy, indifferent sword must be chance --aye, chance, free will, and necessity
--no wise incompatible --all interweavingly working together. The straight
warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course --its every
alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will still free to
ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, though restrained in its
play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed
by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either,
and has the last featuring blow at events. Thus we were weaving and weaving
away when I started at a sound so strange, long drawn, and musically wild and
unearthly, that the ball of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing
up at the clouds whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the
cross-trees was that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly
forward, his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden intervals he
continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that very moment perhaps
being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of whalemen's look-outs perched
as high in the air; but from few of those lungs could that accustomed old cry
have derived such a marvellous cadence as from Tashtego the Indian's. As he
stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and eagerly peering
towards the horizon, you would have thought him some prophet or seer beholding
the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries announcing their coming. There
she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows! ..
3 Where-away? On the
lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them! Instantly all was commotion.
The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and reliable
uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from other tribes of
his genus. There go flukes! was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales
disappeared. Quick, steward! cried Ahab. Time! time! Dough-Boy hurried below,
glanced at the watch, and reported the exact minute to Ahab. The ship was now
kept away from the wind, and she went gently rolling before it. Tashtego
reporting that the whales had gone down heading to leeward, we confidently
looked to see them again directly in advance of our bows. For that singular
craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale when, sounding with his head in one
direction, he nevertheless, while concealed beneath the surface, mills round,
and swiftly swims off in the opposite quarter --this deceitfulness of his
could not now be in action; for there was no reason to suppose that the fish
seen by Tashtego had been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our
vicinity. One of the men selected for shipkeepers -- that is, those not
appointed to the boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the main-mast
head. The sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs were
fixed in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed,
and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over high
cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand clung to the
rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. So look the long
line of man-of-war's men about to throw themselves on board an enemy's ship.
But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took every
eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was surrounded
by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air. ..
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