But taking advantage of his windward position, he again seized
his trumpet, and knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was
a Nantucketer and shortly bound home, he loudly hailed--"Ahoy there!
This is the Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address
all future letters to the Pacific ocean! and this time three years,
if I am not at home, tell them to address them to-"
At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly,
then, in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small
harmless fish, that for some days before had been placidly swimming
by our side, darted away with what seemed shuddering fins,
and ranged themselves fore and aft with the stranger's flanks.
Though in the course of his continual voyagings Ahab must often
before have noticed a similar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man,
the veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings.
"Swim away from me, do ye?" murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water.
There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of deep
helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced.
But turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship
in the wind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion
voice,--"Up helm! Keep her off round the world!"
Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire
proud feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct?
Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started,
where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us.
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