--"Whose is the doubloon now?
D'ye see him?" and if the reply was No, sir! straightway he commanded
them to lift him to his perch. In this way the day wore on;
Ahab, now aloft and motionless; anon, unrestingly pacing the planks.
As he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the men aloft,
or to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to spread one to a still
greater breadth--thus to and fro pacing, beneath his slouched hat,
at every turn he passed his own wrecked boat, which had been dropped upon
the quarter-deck, and lay there reversed; broken bow to shattered stern.
At last he paused before it; and as in an already over-clouded sky fresh
troops of clouds will sometimes sail across, so over the old man's face
there now stole some such added gloom as this.
Stubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly, though,
to evince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place
in his Captain's mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck exclaimed--
"The thistle the ass refused; it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir;
ha! ha! ha!"
"What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck?
Man, man! did I not know thee brave as fearless fire
(and as mechanical) I could swear thou wert a poltroon.
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