But look ye,
Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself.
There are men from whom warm words are small indignity.
I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish
cheeks of spotted tawn--living, breathing pictures painted by the sun.
The Pagan leopards--the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live;
and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel!
The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this
matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian!
he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane,
thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it?
Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin; no wondrous feat
for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt,
then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not
hang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone.
Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee!
Speak, but speak!--Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices thee.
(Aside) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he has
inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose
me now, without rebellion."
"God keep me!--keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly.
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