Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch,
Ahab held it out, exclaiming—"Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I
hold his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these
barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the
fin, where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!"
"Then God keep thee, old man—see'st thou that"—pointing to the
hammock—"I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only
yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only THAT one I bury; the rest were
buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb." Then turning to his
crew—"Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and lift the
body; so, then—Oh! God"—advancing towards the hammock with uplifted
hands—"may the resurrection and the life—"
"Brace forward! Up helm!" cried Ahab like lightning to his men.
But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the
sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not
so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have
sprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism.
As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy hanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous relief.
"Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!" cried a foreboding voice in her wake.
"In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your
taffrail to show us your coffin!"