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Published in 1851, Moby Dick was based in part on author Herman Melville’s own experiences on a whaleship. The novel tells the story of Ahab, the captain of a whaling vessel called The Pequod, who has a three-year mission to collect and sell the valuable oil of whales at the behest of the ship’s owners.

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CHAPTER LXIV. STUBB’S SUPPER

Stubb’s whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was acalm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slowbusiness of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteenmen with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs andfingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpsein the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at longintervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness ofthe mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whateverthey call it, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path willdraw a bulky freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but thisgrand argosy we towed heavily forged along, as if laden with pig-leadin bulk.
Darkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod’smain-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahabdropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantlyeyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders forsecuring it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman,went his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again untilmorning.
Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab hadevinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that thecreature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, ordespair, seemed working in him; as if the sight of that dead bodyreminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousandother whales were brought to his ship, all that would not one jotadvance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thoughtfrom the sound on the Pequod’s decks, that all hands were preparing tocast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along thedeck, and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clankinglinks, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied bythe head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lieswith its black hull close to the vessel’s, and seen through thedarkness of the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, thetwo—ship and whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks,whereof one reclines while the other remains standing.
A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside, is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part is relatively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its flexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface; so that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. By adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily made to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with its broad flukes or lobes.
If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be knownon deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed anunusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle washe in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resignedto him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helpingcause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangelymanifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond ofthe whale as a flavorish thing to his palate.
“A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cutme one from his small!”

Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a generalthing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defraythe current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the proceedsof the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketerswho have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whaledesignated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body.
About midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by twolanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supperat the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubbthe only banqueter on whale’s flesh that night. Mingling theirmumblings with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks,swarming round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness.The few sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharpslapping of their tails against the hull, within a few inches of thesleepers’ hearts. Peering over the side you could just see them (asbefore you heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, andturning over on their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces ofthe whale of the bigness of a human head. This particular feat of theshark seems all but miraculous. How, at such an apparently unassailablesurface, they contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remainsa part of the universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leaveon the whale, may best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter incountersinking for a screw.
Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharkswill be seen longingly gazing up to the ship’s decks, like hungry dogsround a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down everykilled man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiantbutchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other’slive meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks,also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving awayunder the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn thewhole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing,that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties;and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave shipscrossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handyin case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to bedecently buried; and though one or two other like instances might beset down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks domost socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there noconceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countlessnumbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead spermwhale, moored by night to a whale-ship at sea. If you have never seenthat sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety ofdevil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil.
But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that wasgoing on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking ofhis own epicurean lips.
“Cook, cook!—where’s that old Fleece?” he cried at length, widening hislegs still further, as if to form a more secure base for his supper;and, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbingwith his lance; “cook, you cook!—sail this way, cook!”
The old black, not in any very high glee at having been previouslyrouted from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, cameshambling along from his galley, for, like many old blacks, there wassomething the matter with his knee-pans, which he did not keep wellscoured like his other pans; this old Fleece, as they called him, cameshuffling and limping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which,after a clumsy fashion, were made of straightened iron hoops; this oldEbony floundered along, and in obedience to the word of command, cameto a dead stop on the opposite side of Stubb’s sideboard; when, withboth hands folded before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, hebowed his arched back still further over, at the same time sidewaysinclining his head, so as to bring his best ear into play.
“Cook,” said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to hismouth, “don’t you think this steak is rather overdone? You’ve beenbeating this steak too much, cook; it’s too tender. Don’t I always saythat to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are those sharksnow over the side, don’t you see they prefer it tough and rare? What ashindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to ’em; tell ’em they arewelcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they mustkeep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, anddeliver my message. Here, take this lantern,” snatching one from hissideboard; “now then, go and preach to ’em!”

Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deckto the bulwarks; and then, with one hand dropping his light low overthe sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the otherhand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side ina mumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softlycrawling behind, overheard all that was said.
“Fellow-critters: I’se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat damnoise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin’ ob de lip! massa Stubb saydat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! youmust stop dat dam racket!”
“Cook,” here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slapon the shoulder,—“Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn’t swear that waywhen you’re preaching. That’s no way to convert sinners, Cook!”
“Who dat? Den preach to him yourself,” sullenly turning to go.
“No, Cook; go on, go on.”
“Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:”—
“Right!” exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, “coax ’em to it; try that,” andFleece continued.
“Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you,fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness—’top dat dam slappin’ ob detail! How you tink to hear, ’spose you keep up such a dam slappin’ andbitin’ dare?”
“Cook,” cried Stubb, collaring him, “I wont have that swearing. Talk to’em gentlemanly.”
Once more the sermon proceeded.
“Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don’t blame ye so much for; datis natur, and can’t be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat isde pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, whyden you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark wellgoberned. Now, look here, bred’ren, just try wonst to be cibil, ahelping yourselbs from dat whale. Don’t be tearin’ de blubber out yourneighbour’s mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to datwhale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whalebelong to some one else. I know some o’ you has berry brig mout,brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de smallbellies; so dat de brigness ob de mout is not to swallar wid, but tobite off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can’t get into descrouge to help demselves.”
“Well done, old Fleece!” cried Stubb, “that’s Christianity; go on.”
“No use goin’ on; de dam willains will keep a scrougin’ and slappin’each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don’t hear one word; no use a-preachin’ tosuch dam g’uttons as you call ’em, till dare bellies is full, and darebellies is bottomless; and when dey do get em full, dey wont hear youden; for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, andcan’t hear not’ing at all, no more, for eber and eber.”
“Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benediction,Fleece, and I’ll away to my supper.”
Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised hisshrill voice, and cried—
“Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fillyour dam’ bellies till dey bust—and den die.”
“Now, cook,” said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; “Standjust where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particularattention.”
“All dention,” said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in thedesired position.
“Well,” said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; “I shall now goback to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you,cook?”
“What dat do wid de ’teak,” said the old black, testily.
“Silence! How old are you, cook?”
“’Bout ninety, dey say,” he gloomily muttered.
“And have you lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook,and don’t know yet how to cook a whale-steak?” rapidly bolting anothermouthful at the last word, so that that morsel seemed a continuation ofthe question. “Where were you born, cook?”
“’Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin’ ober de Roanoke.”
“Born in a ferry-boat! That’s queer, too. But I want to know whatcountry you were born in, cook?”
“Didn’t I say de Roanoke country?” he cried, sharply.
“No, you didn’t, cook; but I’ll tell you what I’m coming to, cook. Youmust go home and be born over again; you don’t know how to cook awhale-steak yet.”
“Bress my soul, if I cook noder one,” he growled, angrily, turninground to depart.
“Come back, cook;—here, hand me those tongs;—now take that bit of steakthere, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be? Takeit, I say”—holding the tongs towards him—“take it, and taste it.”
Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negromuttered, “Best cooked ’teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy.”
“Cook,” said Stubb, squaring himself once more; “do you belong to thechurch?”
“Passed one once in Cape-Down,” said the old man sullenly.

“And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town,where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers ashis beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here,and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?” said Stubb.“Where do you expect to go to, cook?”
“Go to bed berry soon,” he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.
“Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It’s an awful question.Now what’s your answer?”
“When dis old brack man dies,” said the negro slowly, changing hiswhole air and demeanor, “he hisself won’t go nowhere; but some bressedangel will come and fetch him.”
“Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetchhim where?”
“Up dere,” said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, andkeeping it there very solemnly.
“So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, whenyou are dead? But don’t you know the higher you climb, the colder itgets? Main-top, eh?”
“Didn’t say dat t’all,” said Fleece, again in the sulks.
“You said up there, didn’t you, and now look yourself, and see whereyour tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven bycrawling through the lubber’s hole, cook; but no, no, cook, you don’tget there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It’s aticklish business, but must be done, or else it’s no go. But none of usare in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do yehear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t’other a’top of your heart,when I’m giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?—that’syour gizzard! Aloft! aloft!—that’s it—now you have it. Hold it therenow, and pay attention.”
“All ’dention,” said the old black, with both hands placed as desired,vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front atone and the same time.
“Well then, cook; you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad,that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that,don’t you? Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak formy private table here, the capstan, I’ll tell you what to do so as notto spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a livecoal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d’ye hear? And nowto-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand byto get the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle. As for the endsof the flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go.”
But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.
“Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch.D’ye hear? away you sail, then.—Halloa! stop! make a bow before yougo.—Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast—don’t forget.”
“Wish, by gor! whale eat him, ’stead of him eat whale. I’m bressed ifhe ain’t more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself,” muttered the old man,limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock.

CHAPTER LXV. THE WHALE AS A DISH

That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and,like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems sooutlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history andphilosophy of it.
It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the RightWhale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded largeprices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth’s time, a certain cook of thecourt obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to beeaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species ofwhale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. Themeat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and beingwell seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls.The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a greatporpoise grant from the crown.
The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by allhands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; butwhen you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feetlong, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of menlike Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux arenot so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rareold vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famousdoctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedinglyjuicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, wholong ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel—thatthese men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps ofwhales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Amongthe Dutch whalemen these scraps are called “fritters;” which, indeed,they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling somethinglike old Amsterdam housewives’ dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh.They have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger canhardly keep his hands off.

But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is hisexceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to bedelicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as thebuffalo’s (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solidpyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy thatis; like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in thethird month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute forbutter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it intosome other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try watchesof the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip theirship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Manya good supper have I thus made.
In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a finedish. The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the twoplump, whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two largepuddings), they are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a mostdelectable mess, in flavor somewhat resembling calves’ head, which isquite a dish among some epicures; and every one knows that some youngbucks among the epicures, by continually dining upon calves’ brains, byand by get to have a little brains of their own, so as to be able totell a calf’s head from their own heads; which, indeed, requiresuncommon discrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck withan intelligent looking calf’s head before him, is somehow one of thesaddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully athim, with an “Et tu Brute!” expression.
It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessivelyunctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him withabhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the considerationbefore mentioned: i. e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing ofthe sea, and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first manthat ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he washung; and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly wouldhave been; and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to themeat-market of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipedsstaring up at the long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sighttake a tooth out of the cannibal’s jaw? Cannibals? who is not acannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee thatsalted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; itwill be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day ofjudgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, whonailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thypaté-de-foie-gras.
But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that isadding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, mycivilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what isthat handle made of?—what but the bones of the brother of the very oxyou are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouringthat fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quilldid the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty toGanders formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last monthor two that that society passed a resolution to patronize nothing butsteel pens.

CHAPTER LXVI. THE SHARK MASSACRE

When in the Southern Fishery, a captured Sperm Whale, after long andweary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a generalthing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cuttinghim in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one; is not verysoon completed; and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, thecommon usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm a’lee; and then sendevery one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservationthat, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two andtwo for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deckto see that all goes well.
But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan willnot answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks gatherround the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on astretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning. Inmost other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not solargely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerablydiminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, aprocedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems totickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in thepresent case with the Pequod’s sharks; though, to be sure, any manunaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night,would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, andthose sharks the maggots in it.

Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper wasconcluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman cameon deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; forimmediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and loweringthree lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbidsea, these two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up anincessant murdering of the sharks, by striking the keen steel deepinto their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamyconfusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could notalways hit their mark; and this brought about new revelations of theincredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only ateach other’s disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, andbit their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over againby the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor wasthis all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of thesecreatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk intheir very joints and bones, after what might be called the individuallife had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin,one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg’s hand off, when he triedto shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.
The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel; is about the bigness of a man’s spread hand; and in general shape, corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible; and when being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle.
“Queequeg no care what god made him shark,” said the savage,agonizingly lifting his hand up and down; “wedder Fejee god orNantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin.”

CHAPTER LXVII. CUTTING IN

It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex officioprofessors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory Pequod wasturned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a butcher. You wouldhave thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods.
In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other ponderousthings comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted green, andwhich no single man can possibly lift—this vast bunch of grapes wasswayed up to the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head, thestrongest point anywhere above a ship’s deck. The end of thehawser-like rope winding through these intricacies, was then conductedto the windlass, and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung overthe whale; to this block the great blubber hook, weighing some onehundred pounds, was attached. And now suspended in stages over theside, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates, armed with their long spades,began cutting a hole in the body for the insertion of the hook justabove the nearest of the two side-fins. This done, a broad,semicircular line is cut round the hole, the hook is inserted, and themain body of the crew striking up a wild chorus, now commence heavingin one dense crowd at the windlass. When instantly, the entire shipcareens over on her side; every bolt in her starts like the nail-headsof an old house in frosty weather; she trembles, quivers, and nods herfrighted mast-heads to the sky. More and more she leans over to thewhale, while every gasping heave of the windlass is answered by ahelping heave from the billows; till at last, a swift, startling snapis heard; with a great swash the ship rolls upwards and backwards fromthe whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging after itthe disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of blubber. Now asthe blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an orange,so is it stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimesstripped by spiralizing it. For the strain constantly kept up by thewindlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in thewater, and as the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along theline called the “scarf,” simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuckand Stubb, the mates; and just as fast as it is thus peeled off, andindeed by that very act itself, it is all the time being hoisted higherand higher aloft till its upper end grazes the main-top; the men at thewindlass then cease heaving, and for a moment or two the prodigiousblood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from the sky, andevery one present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, elseit may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard.

One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weaponcalled a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slicesout a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Intothis hole, the end of the second alternating great tackle is thenhooked so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare forwhat follows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all handsto stand off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with afew sidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs it completely intwain; so that while the short lower part is still fast, the long upperstrip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all ready forlowering. The heavers forward now resume their song, and while the onetackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the otheris slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip through themain hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called theblubber-room. Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keepcoiling away the long blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass ofplaited serpents. And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoistingand lowering simultaneously; both whale and windlass heaving, theheavers singing, the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the matesscarfing, the ship straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, byway of assuaging the general friction.