Up helm, I say--ye fools, the jaw! the jaw!
Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities?
Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay!
Up helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow
drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart.
My God, stand by me now!"
"Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will
now help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee,
thou grinning whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake,
but Stubb's own unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon
a mattrass that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood!
I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars!
I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost.
For all that, I would yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand
the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but there'll be
plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes
and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his drawers! A most mouldy
and over salted death, though;--cherries! cherries! cherries!
Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!"
"Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow.
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