For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries.
But chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed
copper sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed
to the deck.
"Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pilot! yesterday I
wrecked thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me.
So, so. But Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet.
Mr. Starbuck--a lance without the pole; a top-maul, and the smallest
of the sail-maker's needles. Quick!"
Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about
to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been
to revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill,
in a matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses.
Besides, the old man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles,
though clumsily practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by
superstitious sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents.
"Men," said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate
handed him the things he had demanded, "my men, the thunder
turned old Ahab's needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab
can make one of his own, that will point as true as any.
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