"Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch,
Ahab held it out, exclaiming--"Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this
hand I hold his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning
are these barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place
behind the fin, where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!"
"Then God keep thee, old man--see'st thou that"--
pointing to the hammock--"I bury but one of five stout men,
who were alive only yesterday; but were dead ere night.
Only that one I bury; the rest were buried before they died;
you sail upon their tomb." Then turning to his crew--"Are
ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and lift
the body; so, then--Oh! God"--advancing towards the hammock
with uplifted hands--"may the resurrection and the life-"
"Brace forward! Up helm!" cried Ahab like lightning to his men.
But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape
the sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea;
not so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have
sprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism.
As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy
hanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous relief.
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