The
whaling-pike is similar to a frigate's boarding-weapon of the same name.
The gaff is something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the gaffman
hooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping,
as the ship pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the spade-man stands
on the sheet itself, perpendicularly chopping it into the portable
horse-pieces. This spade is sharp as hone can make it; the spademan's
feet are shoeless; the thing he stands on will sometimes irresistibly
slide away from him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of his own toes,
or one of his assistants', would you be very much astonished?
Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-room men.
CHAPTER 95
The Cassock
Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this
post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh
the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no
small curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would
have seen there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers.
Not the wondrous cistern in the whale's huge head; not the prodigy
of his unhinged lower jaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail;
none of these would so surprise you, as half a glimpse of
that unaccountable cone,--longer than a Kentuckian is tall,
nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jet-black as Yojo,
the ebony idol of Queequeg.
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