Relieved against the ghostly light,
the gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature,
and seemed the black cloud from which the thunder had come.
The parted mouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth,
which strangely gleamed as if they too had been tipped by corpusants;
while lit up by the preternatural light, Queequeg's tattooing burned
like Satanic blue flames on his body.
The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once
more the Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall.
A moment or two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against
some one. It was Stubb. "What thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry;
it was not the same in the song."
"No, no, it wasn't; I said the corpusants have mercy on us all;
and I hope they will, still. But do they only have
mercy on long faces?--have they no bowels for a laugh?
And look ye, Mr. Starbuck--but it's too dark to look.
Hear me, then; I take that mast-head flame we saw for a sign
of good luck; for those masts are rooted in a hold that is
going to be chock a' block with sperm-oil, d'ye see; and so,
all that sperm will work up into the masts, like sap in a tree.
Yes, our three masts will yet be as three spermaceti candles--
that's the good promise we saw.
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