_ Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his
quarter-deck, taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and
mainmast; but in the multiplicity of other things requiring narration
it has not been added how that sometimes in these walks, when most
plunged in his mood, he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and
stand there strangely eyeing the particular object before him. When
he halted before the binnacle, with his glance fastened on the
pointed needle in the compass, that glance shot like a javelin with
the pointed intensity of his purpose; and when resuming his walk he
again paused before the mainmast, then, as the same riveted glance
fastened upon the riveted gold coin there, he still wore the same
aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed with a certain wild longing,
if not hopefulness.
But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly
attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as
though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in
some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And
some certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are
little worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except
to sell by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up
some morass in the Milky Way.
Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of
the heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden
sands, the head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now
nailed amidst all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of
copper spikes, yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it
still preserved its Quito glow. Nor, though placed amongst a
ruthless crew and every hour passed by ruthless hands, and through
the livelong nights shrouded with thick darkness which might cover
any pilfering approach, nevertheless every sunrise found the doubloon
where the sunset left it last. For it was set apart and sanctified
to one awe-striking end; and however wanton in their sailor ways, one
and all, the mariners revered it as the white whale's talisman.
Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by night, wondering
whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever live to spend
it.
Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the
sun and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes;
sun's disks and stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners
waving, are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold
seems almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories,
by passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.
It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy
example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters,
REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a
country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great
equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the
Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those
letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a
flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching
over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all
marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering
the equinoctial point at Libra.
Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now
pausing.
"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and
all other grand and lofty things; look here,--three peaks as proud as
Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab;
the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is
Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the
rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man
in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small
gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve
itself. Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see!
aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months
before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to
storm! So be it, then. Born in throes, 't is fit that man should
live in pains and die in pangs! So be it, then! Here's stout stuff
for woe to work on. So be it, then."
"No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must have
left their mouldings there since yesterday," murmured Starbuck to
himself, leaning against the bulwarks. "The old man seems to read
Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin
inspectingly. He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between
three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in
some faint earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us
round; and over all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines
a beacon and a hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows
her mouldy soil; but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance
half way, to cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at
midnight, we would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze
for him in vain! This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still
sadly to me. I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely."
"There now's the old Mogul," soliloquized Stubb by the try-works,
"he's been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and
both with faces which I should say might be somewhere within nine
fathoms long. And all from looking at a piece of gold, which did I
have it now on Negro Hill or in Corlaer's Hook, I'd not look at it
very long ere spending it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion,
I regard this as queer. I have seen doubloons before now in my
voyagings; your doubloons of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your
doubloons of Chili, your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of
Popayan; with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes, and
half joes, and quarter joes. What then should there be in this
doubloon of the Equator that is so killing wonderful? By Golconda!
let me read it once. Halloa! here's signs and wonders truly! That,
now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the zodiac, and what
my almanac below calls ditto. I'll get the almanac and as I have
heard devils can be raised with Daboll's arithmetic, I'll try my hand
at raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with the
Massachusetts calendar. Here's the book. Let's see now. Signs and
wonders; and the sun, he's always among 'em. Hem, hem, hem; here
they are--here they go--all alive:--Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the
Bull and Jimimi! here's Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun
he wheels among 'em. Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing the
threshold between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book!
you lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll
do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the
thoughts. That's my small experience, so far as the Massachusetts
calendar, and Bowditch's navigator, and Daboll's arithmetic go.
Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs,
and significant in wonders! There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit;
hist--hark! By Jove, I have it! Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac
here is the life of man in one round chapter; and now I'll read it
off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's
Aries, or the Ram--lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the
Bull--he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins--that
is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer
the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a
roaring Lion, lies in the path--he gives a few fierce bites and surly
dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our
first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes
Libra, or the Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while
we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio,
or the Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when
whang come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is
amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's
the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes
rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the
Water-bearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind
up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ
in high heaven, and the sun goes through it every year, and yet comes
out of it all alive and hearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels
through toil and trouble; and so, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh,
jolly's the word for aye! Adieu, Doubloon! But stop; here comes
little King-Post; dodge round the try-works, now, and let's hear what
he'll have to say. There; he's before it; he'll out with something
presently. So, so; he's beginning."
"I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever
raises a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So, what's
all this staring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars, that's
true; and at two cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and sixty
cigars. I won't smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and
here's nine hundred and sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to
spy 'em out."
"Shall I call that wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has
a foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a
sort of wiseish look to it. But, avast; here comes our old
Manxman--the old hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he
took to the sea. He luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes
round on the other side of the mast; why, there's a horse-shoe nailed
on that side; and now he's back again; what does that mean? Hark!
he's muttering--voice like an old worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears,
and listen!"
"If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day, when
the sun stands in some one of these signs. I've studied signs, and
know their marks; they were taught me two score years ago, by the old
witch in Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then be? The
horse-shoe sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold. And
what's the horse-shoe sign? The lion is the horse-shoe sign--the
roaring and devouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes to
think of thee."
"There's another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men
in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg--all
tattooing--looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the
Cannibal? As I live he's comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone;
thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I
suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back
country. And by Jove, he's found something there in the vicinity of
his thigh--I guess it's Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don't
know what to make of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off
some king's trowsers. But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil,
Fedallah; tail coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his
pumps as usual. What does he say, with that look of his? Ah, only
makes a sign to the sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the
coin--fire worshipper, depend upon it. Ho! more and more. This way
comes Pip--poor boy! would he had died, or I; he's half horrible to
me. He too has been watching all of these interpreters--myself
included--and look now, he comes to read, with that unearthly idiot
face. Stand away again and hear him. Hark!"
"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."
"Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar! Improving his
mind, poor fellow! But what's that he says now--hist!"
"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."
"Why, he's getting it by heart--hist! again."
"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."
"Well, that's funny."
"And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I'm a
crow, especially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here. Caw!
caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain't I a crow? And where's the
scare-crow? There he stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old
trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves of an old jacket."
"Wonder if he means me?--complimentary!--poor lad!--I could go hang
myself. Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity. I can
stand the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too crazy-witty
for my sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering."
"Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on
fire to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what's the
consequence? Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for
when aught's nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow
desperate. Ha, ha! old Ahab! the White Whale; he'll nail ye! This
is a pine tree. My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine
tree once, and found a silver ring grown over in it; some old
darkey's wedding ring. How did it get there? And so they'll say in
the resurrection, when they come to fish up this old mast, and find a
doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters for the shaggy bark. Oh,
the gold! the precious, precious, gold! the green miser'll hoard ye
soon! Hish! hish! God goes 'mong the worlds blackberrying. Cook!
ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny!
and get your hoe-cake done!" _