Chapter 73.00: CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam’s Story.

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CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam’s Story.
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Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than the
ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock.

By and by, through the glass the stranger’s boats and manned mast-heads
proved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to windward, and shooting
by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the Pequod could not
hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what response would be
made.

Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships of
the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which signals
being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels
attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale commanders
are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at considerable
distances and with no small facility.

The Pequod’s signal was at last responded to by the stranger’s setting her
own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket. Squaring her
yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod’s lee, and lowered a
boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was being rigged by
Starbuck’s order to accommodate the visiting captain, the stranger in
question waved his hand from his boat’s stern in token of that proceeding
being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that the Jeroboam had a
malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her captain, was fearful of
infecting the Pequod’s company. For, though himself and boat’s crew
remained untainted, and though his ship was half a rifle-shot off, and an
incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between; yet conscientiously
adhering to the timid quarantine of the land, he peremptorily refused to
come into direct contact with the Pequod.

But this did by no means prevent all communications. Preserving an
interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam’s
boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to the
Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it blew
very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times by the
sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some way
ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings again.
Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a
conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not
without still another interruption of a very different sort.

Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam’s boat, was a man of a singular appearance,
even in that wild whaling life where individual notabilities make up all
totalities. He was a small, short, youngish man, sprinkled all over his
face with freckles, and wearing redundant yellow hair. A long-skirted,
cabalistically-cut coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped him; the
overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists. A deep,
settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.

So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed—“That’s
he! That’s he! —the long-togged scaramouch the Town-Ho’s company told
us of!” Stubb here alluded to a strange story told of the Jeroboam, and a
certain man among her crew, some time previous when the Pequod spoke the
Town-Ho. According to this account and what was subsequently learned, it
seemed that the scaramouch in question had gained a wonderful ascendency
over almost everybody in the Jeroboam. His story was this:

He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna
Shakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked, secret
meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a
trap-door, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial, which he
carried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of containing gunpowder,
was supposed to be charged with laudanum. A strange, apostolic whim having
seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with that cunning
peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, common-sense exterior, and
offered himself as a green-hand candidate for the Jeroboam’s whaling
voyage. They engaged him; but straightway upon the ship’s getting out of
sight of land, his insanity broke out in a freshet. He announced himself
as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded the captain to jump overboard. He
published his manifesto, whereby he set himself forth as the deliverer of
the isles of the sea and vicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching
earnestness with which he declared these things;—the dark, daring
play of his sleepless, excited imagination, and all the preternatural
terrors of real delirium, united to invest this Gabriel in the minds of
the majority of the ignorant crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness.
Moreover, they were afraid of him. As such a man, however, was not of much
practical use in the ship, especially as he refused to work except when he
pleased, the incredulous captain would fain have been rid of him; but
apprised that that individual’s intention was to land him in the first
convenient port, the archangel forthwith opened all his seals and vials—devoting
the ship and all hands to unconditional perdition, in case this intention
was carried out. So strongly did he work upon his disciples among the
crew, that at last in a body they went to the captain and told him if
Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain. He was
therefore forced to relinquish his plan. Nor would they permit Gabriel to
be any way maltreated, say or do what he would; so that it came to pass
that Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship. The consequence of all
this was, that the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and
mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand
than ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole
command; nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure. The
sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him;
in obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage,
as to a god. Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they
are true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to
the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless
power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But it is time to
return to the Pequod.

“I fear not thy epidemic, man,” said Ahab from the bulwarks, to Captain
Mayhew, who stood in the boat’s stern; “come on board.”

But now Gabriel started to his feet.

“Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible
plague!”

“Gabriel! Gabriel!” cried Captain Mayhew; “thou must either—” But
that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seethings
drowned all speech.

“Hast thou seen the White Whale?” demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted
back.

“Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible
tail!”

“I tell thee again, Gabriel, that—” But again the boat tore ahead as
if dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a
succession of riotous waves rolled by, which by one of those occasional
caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted
sperm whale’s head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was seen
eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel nature
seemed to warrant.

When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story concerning
Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent interruptions from Gabriel,
whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea that seemed leagued
with him.

It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking a
whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of Moby
Dick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking in this intelligence,
Gabriel solemnly warned the captain against attacking the White Whale, in
case the monster should be seen; in his gibbering insanity, pronouncing
the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God incarnated; the
Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some year or two afterwards, Moby
Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey, the chief mate, burned
with ardour to encounter him; and the captain himself being not unwilling
to let him have the opportunity, despite all the archangel’s denunciations
and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five men to man his boat.
With them he pushed off; and, after much weary pulling, and many perilous,
unsuccessful onsets, he at last succeeded in getting one iron fast.
Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the main-royal mast-head, was tossing one
arm in frantic gestures, and hurling forth prophecies of speedy doom to
the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity. Now, while Macey, the mate,
was standing up in his boat’s bow, and with all the reckless energy of his
tribe was venting his wild exclamations upon the whale, and essaying to
get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo! A broad white shadow rose from
the sea; by its quick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out
of the bodies of the oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full of
furious life, was smitten bodily into the air, and making a long arc in
his descent, fell into the sea at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a
chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any oarsman’s head; but the
mate for ever sank.

It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the
Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any.
Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated; oftener
the boat’s bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, in which the headsman
stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But strangest of
all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one, when the body
has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is discernible; the man
being stark dead.

The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried
from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek—“The vial! The vial!”
Gabriel called off the terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of
the whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with added influence;
because his credulous disciples believed that he had specifically
fore-announced it, instead of only making a general prophecy, which any
one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one of many marks in the
wide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror to the ship.

Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to him,
that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he intended
to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which Ahab
answered—“Aye.” Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to his
feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with downward
pointed finger—“Think, think of the blasphemer—dead, and down
there! —beware of the blasphemer’s end!”

Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, “Captain, I have just
bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy officers,
if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag.”

Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships,
whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends upon
the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans. Thus, most
letters never reach their mark; and many are only received after attaining
an age of two or three years or more.

Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely tumbled,
damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in consequence of
being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter, Death himself
might well have been the post-boy.

“Can’st not read it?” cried Ahab. “Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it’s but a
dim scrawl;—what’s this?” As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a
long cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to
insert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without its
coming any closer to the ship.

Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, “Mr. Har—yes, Mr. Harry—(a
woman’s pinny hand,—the man’s wife, I’ll wager)—Aye—Mr.
Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam;—why it’s Macey, and he’s dead!”

“Poor fellow! Poor fellow! And from his wife,” sighed Mayhew; “but let me
have it.”

“Nay, keep it thyself,” cried Gabriel to Ahab; “thou art soon going that
way.”

“Curses throttle thee!” yelled Ahab. “Captain Mayhew, stand by now to
receive it”; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck’s hands, he caught
it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the boat. But as
he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing; the boat drifted
a little towards the ship’s stern; so that, as if by magic, the letter
suddenly ranged along with Gabriel’s eager hand. He clutched it in an
instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the letter on it, sent it
thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab’s feet. Then Gabriel
shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in that
manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod.

As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket of
the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild
affair.