Now these three mates--Starbuck, Stubb and Flask, were momentous men.
They it was who by universal prescription commanded three of the Pequod's
boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which Captain Ahab
would probably marshal his forces to descend on the whales, these three
headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with their
long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers;
even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins.
And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman,
like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his
boat-steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides
him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted,
or elbowed in the assault; and moreover, as there generally
subsists between the two, a close intimacy and friendliness;
it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set down
who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each
of them belonged.
First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate,
had selected for his squire. But Queequeg is already known.
Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly
promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists the last
remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring
island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers.
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