CHAPTER CXXVIII. THE PEQUOD MEETS THE RACHEL


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
recognized 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 blue 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 day light; 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, woful 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.




