The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; the life-buoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship, most miserably misnamed the Delight, was descried.
As she drew nigh, all eyes were fixed upon her broad beams, called shears, which, in some whaling-ships, cross the quarter-deck at the height of eight or nine feet; serving to carry the spare, unrigged, or disabled boats.
Upon the stranger’s shears were beheld the shattered, white ribs, and some few splintered planks, of what had once been a whale-boat; but you now saw through this wreck, as plainly as you see through the peeled, half-unhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a horse.
'Hast seen the White Whale? ' 'Look! ' replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail; and with his trumpet he pointed to the wreck. 'Hast killed him?
' 'The harpoon is not yet forged that will ever do that,' answered the other, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose gathered sides some noiseless sailors were busy in sewing together. 'Not forged!
' and snatching Perth’s levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming—'Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold his death!
Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the fin, where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!
' 'Then God keep thee, old man—see’st thou that'—pointing to the hammock—'I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only that one I bury; the rest were buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb.
' Then turning to his crew—'Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and lift the body; so, then—Oh! God'—advancing towards the hammock with uplifted hands—'may the