The grey dawn came on,
and the slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere
noon the dead whale was brought to the ship.
CHAPTER 118
The Quadrant
The season for the Line at length drew near; and every
day when Ahab, coming from his cabin cast his eyes aloft,
the vigilant helmsman would ostentatiously handle his spokes,
and the eager mariners quickly run to the braces, and would stand
there with all their eyes centrally fixed on the nailed doubloon;
impatient for the order to point the ship's prow for the equator.
In good time the order came. It was hard upon high noon;
and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat,
was about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun
to determine his latitude.
Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets
of effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun
seems the blazing focus of the glassy ocean's immeasurable
burning-glass. The sky looks lacquered; clouds there are none;
the horizon floats; and this nakedness of unrelieved
radiance is as the insufferable splendors of God's throne.
Well that Ahab's quadrant was furnished with colored glasses,
through which to take sight of that solar fire.
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