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Table of Contents
Chapter 49
THE HYENA
There are certain queer
times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes
this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but
dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense
but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while
disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions,
all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of
potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small
difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and
limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits,
and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old
joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only
in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his
earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most
momentous, now seems but a part of the general ..
2 joke. There is nothing
like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial,
desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole voyage of the
Pequod, and the great White Whale its object. Queequeg, said I, when they had
dragged me, the last man, to the deck, and I was still shaking myself in my
jacket to fling off the water; Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of
thing often happen? Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me,
he gave me to understand that such things did often happen. Mr. Stubb, said I,
turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his oil-jacket, was now calmly
smoking his pipe in the rain; Mr. Stubb, I think I have heard you say that of
all whalemen you ever met, our chief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most
careful and prudent. I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale with
your sail set in a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman's discretion?
Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale off Cape Horn.
Mr. Flask, said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standing close by; you
are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you tell me whether it is
an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask, for an oarsman to break his own
back pulling himself back-foremost into death's jaws? Can't you twist that
smaller? said Flask. Yes, that's the law. I should like to see a boat's crew
backing water up to a whale face foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them
squint for squint, mind that! here then, from three impartial witnesses, i had
a deliberate statement of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that
squalls and capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were
matters of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the
superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign my life
into the hands of him who steered the boat --oftentimes a fellow who at that
very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling the craft with
his own frantic stampings; considering that the particular disaster to our own
particular boat was chiefly to be ..
3 imputed to Starbuck's
driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall, and considering that
Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his great heedfulness in the
fishery; considering that I belonged to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck's
boat; and finally considering in what a devil's chase I was implicated,
touching the White Whale: taking all things together, I say, I thought I might
as well go below and make a rough draft of my will. Queequeg, said I, come
along, you shall be my lawyer, executor, and legatee. It may seem strange that
of all men sailors should be tinkering at their last wills and testaments, but
there are no people in the world more fond of that diversion. This was the
fourth time in my nautical life that I had done the same thing. After the
ceremony was concluded upon the present occasion, I felt all the easier; a
stone was rolled away from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live
would be as good as the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a
supplementary clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case might be. I
survived myself; my death and burial were locked up in my chest. I looked
round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean
conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault. now then, thought i,
unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, here goes a cool, collected
dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost. ..
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