Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible
sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place;
where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of
crowned Babylonian kings and queens, reigned over everything.
The sea was as a crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps
with light and heat.
Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart; and every
time the teetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit,
he turned to eye the bright sun's rays produced ahead;
and when she profoundly settled by the stern, he turned behind,
and saw the sun's rearward place, and how the same yellow rays
were blending with his undeviating wake.
"Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea-chariot of
the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I bring the sun to ye!
Yoke on the further billows; hallo! a tandem, I drive the sea!"
But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried towards
the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading.
"East-sou-east, sir," said the frightened steersman.
"Thou liest!" smiting him with his clenched fist.
"Heading East at this hour in the morning, and the sun astern?"
Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just
then observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else;
but its very blinding palpableness must have been the cause.
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