But dashing the rattling
lightning links to the deck, and snatching the burning harpoon,
Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to transfix
with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope's end.
Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from
the fiery dart that he held, the men fell back in dismay,
and Ahab again spoke:--
"All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine;
and heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound.
And that ye may know to what tune this heart beats: look ye here;
thus I blow out the last fear!" And with one blast of his breath
he extinguished the flame.
As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neighborhood
of some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and strength but render it
so much the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for thunderbolts;
so at those last words of Ahab's many of the mariners did run from him
in a terror of dismay.
CHAPTER 120
The Deck Toward the End of the First Night Watch
Ahab standing by the helm. Starbuck approaching him.
We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band is working
loose and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?"
"Strike nothing; lash it.
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