But once Tashtego's senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew,
superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty years
old did Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him,
not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife
at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived,
by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man,
who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never
ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old
sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested
this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment.
So that no white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said
that if ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid out--
which might hardly come to pass, so he muttered--then, whoever should
do that last office for the dead, would find a birth-mark on him
from crown to sole.
So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me,
and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments
I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness
was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood.
It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been
fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm whale's jaw.
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