.. < chapter xlix 15  THE HYENA >


     There are certain queer times and occasions

in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe


     for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns,

and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.

However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing.  He bolts

down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things

visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent

digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints.  And as for small difficulties

and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all

these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly

punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker.  That

odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time

of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so

that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now

seems but a part of the general

.. <p 226 >

joke.  There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy

sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole

voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object.  Queequeg, said

I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the deck, and I was still

shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the water; Queequeg, my fine

friend, does this sort of thing often happen?  Without much emotion, though

soaked through just like me, he gave me to understand that such things did

often happen.  Mr. Stubb, said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up

in his oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; Mr. Stubb,

I think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, our chief

mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent.  I suppose then,

that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy squall is the

height of a whaleman's discretion?  Certain.  I've lowered for whales from a

leaking ship in a gale off Cape Horn.  Mr. Flask, said I, turning to

little King-Post, who was standing close by; you are experienced in these

things, and I am not.  Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law in

this fishery, Mr. Flask, for an oarsman to break his own back pulling himself

back-foremost into death's jaws?  Can't you twist that smaller?  said Flask.


     Yes, that's the law.  I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a

whale face foremost.  Ha, ha!  the whale would give them squint for squint,

mind that!  here then, from three impartial witnesses, i had a deliberate

statement of the entire case.  Considering, therefore, that squalls and

capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were matters

of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the

superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign my life

into the hands of him who steered the boat --oftentimes a fellow who at that

very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling the craft

with his own frantic stampings; considering that the particular disaster to

our own particular boat was chiefly to be

.. <p 227 >

imputed to Starbuck's driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall,


     and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his great

heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged to this uncommonly

prudent Starbuck's boat; and finally considering in what a devil's chase I was

implicated, touching the White Whale: taking all things together, I say, I

thought I might as well go below and make a rough draft of my will.


     Queequeg, said I, come along, you shall be my lawyer, executor, and

legatee.  It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at

their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more

fond of that diversion.  This was the fourth time in my nautical life that I

had done the same thing.  After the ceremony was concluded upon the present

occasion, I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled away from my heart.

Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good as the days that

Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a supplementary clean gain of so many

months or weeks as the case might be.  I survived myself; my death and burial

were locked up in my chest.  I looked round me tranquilly and contentedly,

like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug

family vault.  now then, thought i, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of

my frock, here goes a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the

devil fetch the hindmost.

.. <p 227 >