Meantime, of the broken keel of Ahab's wrecked
craft the carpenter made him another leg; while still as on
the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle;
his hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial;
sat due eastward for the earliest sun.
CHAPTER 135
The Chase - Third Day
The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once
more the solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved
by crowds of the daylight look-outs, who dotted every mast
and almost every spar.
"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight.
"In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's all.
Helm there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going.
What a lovely day again! were it a new-made world, and made for
a summer-house to the angels, and this morning the first of its
throwing open to them, a fairer day could not dawn upon that world.
Here's food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks;
he only feels, feels, feels; that's tingling enough for mortal
man! to think's audacity. God only has that right and privilege.
Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our
poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.
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