Where wert thou born?"
"In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir."
"Excellent! Thou'st hit the world by that."
"I know not, sir, but I was born there."
"In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it's good.
Here's a man from Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now
unmanned of Man; which is sucked in--by what? Up with the reel!
The dead, blind wall butts all inquiring heads at last.
Up with it! So."
The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long
dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl.
In turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing
resistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely.
"Hold hard!"
Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon;
the tugging log was gone.
"I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles,
and now the mad sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all.
Haul in here, Tahitian; reel up, Manxman. And look ye,
let the carpenter make another log, and mend thou the line.
See to it."
"There he goes now; to him nothing's happened; but to me,
the skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world.
Haul in, haul in, Tahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out:
come in broken, and dragging slow.
Pages:
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836