"
Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors,
as this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever
magic might follow. But Starbuck looked away.
With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of
the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining,
bade him hold it upright, without its touching the deck.
Then, with the maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this
iron rod, he placed the blunted needle endwise on the top of it,
and less strongly hammered that, several times, the mate still holding
the rod as before. Then going through some small strange motions
with it--whether indispensable to the magnetizing of the steel,
or merely intended to augment the awe of the crew, is uncertain--
he called for linen thread; and moving to the binnacle, slipped out
the two reversed needles there, and horizontally suspended the
sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass cards. At first,
the steel went round and round, quivering and vibrating at either end;
but at last it settled to its place, when Ahab, who had been intently
watching for this result, stepped frankly back from the binnacle,
and pointing his stretched arm towards it, exclaimed,--"Look ye,
for yourselves, if Ahab be not the lord of the level loadstone!
The sun is East, and that compass swears it!"
One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes
could persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another
they slunk away.
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