Chapter 130.00: CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel.

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CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel.
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Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down
upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men. At the time
the Pequod was making good speed through the water; but as the
broad-winged windward stranger shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all
fell together as blank bladders that are burst, and all life fled from the
smitten hull.

“Bad news; she brings bad news,” muttered the old Manxman. But ere her
commander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he could
hopefully hail, Ahab’s voice was heard.

“Hast seen the White Whale?”

“Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?”

Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question; and
would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger captain
himself, having stopped his vessel’s way, was seen descending her side. A
few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the Pequod’s main-chains,
and he sprang to the deck. Immediately he was recognised by Ahab for a
Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation was exchanged.

“Where was he? —not killed! —not killed!” cried Ahab, closely
advancing. “How was it?”

It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day previous, while
three of the stranger’s boats were engaged with a shoal of whales, which
had led them some four or five miles from the ship; and while they were
yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head of Moby Dick had
suddenly loomed up out of the water, not very far to leeward; whereupon,
the fourth rigged boat—a reserved one—had been instantly
lowered in chase. After a keen sail before the wind, this fourth boat—the
swiftest keeled of all—seemed to have succeeded in fastening—at
least, as well as the man at the mast-head could tell anything about it.
In the distance he saw the diminished dotted boat; and then a swift gleam
of bubbling white water; and after that nothing more; whence it was
concluded that the stricken whale must have indefinitely run away with his
pursuers, as often happens. There was some apprehension, but no positive
alarm, as yet. The recall signals were placed in the rigging; darkness
came on; and forced to pick up her three far to windward boats—ere
going in quest of the fourth one in the precisely opposite direction—the
ship had not only been necessitated to leave that boat to its fate till
near midnight, but, for the time, to increase her distance from it. But
the rest of her crew being at last safe aboard, she crowded all sail—stunsail
on stunsail—after the missing boat; kindling a fire in her try-pots
for a beacon; and every other man aloft on the look-out. But though when
she had thus sailed a sufficient distance to gain the presumed place of
the absent ones when last seen; though she then paused to lower her spare
boats to pull all around her; and not finding anything, had again dashed
on; again paused, and lowered her boats; and though she had thus continued
doing till daylight; yet not the least glimpse of the missing keel had
been seen.

The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his
object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with his own
in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five miles apart, on
parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were.

“I will wager something now,” whispered Stubb to Flask, “that some one in
that missing boat wore off that Captain’s best coat; mayhap, his watch—he’s
so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two pious whale-ships
cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height of the whaling season?
See, Flask, only see how pale he looks—pale in the very buttons of
his eyes—look—it wasn’t the coat—it must have been the—”

“My boy, my own boy is among them. For God’s sake—I beg, I conjure”—here
exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far had but icily
received his petition. “For eight-and-forty hours let me charter your ship—I
will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it—if there be no other
way—for eight-and-forty hours only—only that—you must,
oh, you must, and you shall do this thing.”

“His son!” cried Stubb, “oh, it’s his son he’s lost! I take back the coat
and watch—what says Ahab? We must save that boy.”

“He’s drowned with the rest on ’em, last night,” said the old Manx sailor
standing behind them; “I heard; all of ye heard their spirits.”

Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel’s the
more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the
Captain’s sons among the number of the missing boat’s crew; but among the
number of the other boat’s crews, at the same time, but on the other hand,
separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the chase, there
had been still another son; as that for a time, the wretched father was
plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity; which was only solved
for him by his chief mate’s instinctively adopting the ordinary procedure
of a whale-ship in such emergencies, that is, when placed between
jeopardized but divided boats, always to pick up the majority first. But
the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason, had refrained from
mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by Ahab’s iciness did he
allude to his one yet missing boy; a little lad, but twelve years old,
whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer’s
paternal love, had thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and
wonders of a vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race. Nor
does it unfrequently occur, that Nantucket captains will send a son of
such tender age away from them, for a protracted three or four years’
voyage in some other ship than their own; so that their first knowledge of
a whaleman’s career shall be unenervated by any chance display of a
father’s natural but untimely partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and
concern.

Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab; and
Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without the
least quivering of his own.

“I will not go,” said the stranger, “till you say aye to me. Do to me as
you would have me do to you in the like case. For you too have a boy,
Captain Ahab—though but a child, and nestling safely at home now—a
child of your old age too—Yes, yes, you relent; I see it—run,
run, men, now, and stand by to square in the yards.”

“Avast,” cried Ahab—“touch not a rope-yarn”; then in a voice that
prolongingly moulded every word—“Captain Gardiner, I will not do it.
Even now I lose time. Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man, and may I
forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch,
and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers:
then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before.”

Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin, leaving
the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter rejection
of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment, Gardiner
silently hurried to the side; more fell than stepped into his boat, and
returned to his ship.

Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel
was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot,
however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung round;
starboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat against a head
sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the while, her masts and
yards were thickly clustered with men, as three tall cherry trees, when
the boys are cherrying among the boughs.

But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly saw
that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort.
She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not.