Aye, and say'st the men have vow'd
thy vow; say'st all of us are Ahabs. Great God forbid!--
But is there no other way? no lawful way?--Make him a prisoner
to be taken home? What! hope to wrest this old man's living
power from his own living hands? Only a fool would try it.
Say he were pinioned even; knotted all over with ropes
and hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor;
he would be more hideous than a caged tiger, then. I could
not endure the sight; could not possibly fly his howlings;
all comfort, sleep itself, inestimable reason would leave me
on the long intolerable voyage. What, then, remains? The land
is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan the nearest.
I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and a
whole continent between me and law.--Aye, aye, 'tis so.--
Is heaven a murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be
murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin together?--
And would I be a murderer, then, if"--and slowly, stealthily,
and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded musket's end
against the door.
"On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within; his head this way.
A touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.
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