"I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow,
full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane
at last, down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans!
of all this fiery life of thine, what will at length remain
but one little heap of ashes!"
"Aye," cried Stubb, "but sea-coal ashes--mind ye that, Mr. Starbuck--
sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well! I heard
Ahab mutter, 'Here some one thrusts these cards into these old
hands of mine; swears that I must play them, and no others.'
And damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right; live in the game,
and die in it!"
CHAPTER 119
The Candles
Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger
of Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure.
Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders:
gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame
northern lands. So, too, it is, that in these resplendent
Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all storms,
the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless sky,
like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town.
Towards evening of that day, the Pequod was torn of her canvas,
and bare-poled was left to fight a Typhoon which had struck
her directly ahead.
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