I heard old Ahab tell him he must
always kill a squall, something as they burst a waterspout with a pistol--
fire your ship right into it!
ENGLISH SAILOR
Blood! but that old man's a grand old cove! We are the lads
to hunt him up his whale!
ALL
Aye! aye!
OLD MANX SAILOR
How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort of tree
to live when shifted to any other soil, and here there's
none but the crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady.
This is the sort of weather when brave hearts snap ashore,
and keeled hulls split at sea. Our captain has his birthmark;
look yonder, boys, there's another in the sky lurid--like, ye see,
all else pitch black.
DAGGOO
What of that? Who's afraid of black's afraid of me!
I'm quarried out of it!
SPANISH SAILOR
(Aside.) He wants to bully, ah!--the old grudge makes me touchy
(Advancing.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark
side of mankind--devilish dark at that. No offence.
DAGGOO (Grimly)
None.
ST. JAGO'S SAILOR
That Spaniard's mad or drunk. But that can't be, or else in his one
case our old Mogul's fire-waters are somewhat long in working.
5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR
What's that I saw--lightning? Yes.
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