Several days passed. All the ice and icebergs were far behind us. The Pequod rolled along under the bright spring weather near Quito. Out here at sea, you almost get endless tropical summer.
The days felt warm yet fresh. Clear bright air, sweet smells all around. It was like drinking fancy cold fruit sherbet, topped with rose‑flavoured snow.
The star‑filled nights were grand and beautiful. They felt like proud noble ladies dressed in rich jewelled velvet, alone and reminiscing about the sun, their gone‑off warrior lord.
It was hard for any sleeping sailor to pick between these lovely days and those magical nights.
This wonderful weather did not just change the world outside the ship. It touched people’s inner thoughts too. Especially during those soft, quiet evening hours. Memories would surface, sharp and clear like frost forming on still water.
All these gentle influences worked slowly on Captain Ahab, changing him little by little.
Old men rarely sleep soundly through the whole night. The longer you live, the less you seem to want anything that feels like giving in to death.
Among ship captains, the grey‑haired old ones often climb up on deck after dark. Ahab was exactly like that. Lately he spent so much time above decks that going down to his cabin felt like leaving the open air, not the other way round.
“It’s like climbing down into my own tomb,” he would mutter to himself. “For an old captain like me, squeezing down this narrow hatch to my bed, that grave‑like bunk.”
Nearly every twenty‑four hours, once the night watches began. Men on deck kept guard while the rest of the crew slept below. If sailors needed to haul a rope up front, they lowered it softly, not roughly like they would in daytime, so they would not wake their sleeping shipmates.
When everything grew quiet like this, the helmsman would keep an eye on the cabin hatch. Before long the old captain would come out. He gripped the iron handrail to steady his injured leg.
He still had some human consideration left in him. Most nights he would avoid marching back and forth across the quarter‑deck. His heavy ivory leg struck the wooden planks with loud sharp thuds. If he paced there, the mates trying to sleep just below would hear every crash. Their dreams would fill with images of sharks crunching bones.
But one night his dark mood was too strong for him to care about disturbing others. He tramped heavily from the stern all the way to the main mast.
Stubb, the second mate, climbed up from below. He looked nervous, trying to keep things light‑hearted.
“Captain Ahab, sir, no one can stop you walking the deck if that’s what you want,” Stubb said carefully. “Though maybe there is some way to muffle that noise.”
He hinted vaguely at stuffing tow‑rope fibres around the bottom of the ivory leg.
Ah, poor Stubb. He still had no real idea what kind of man Ahab was.
“Am I a cannon‑ball, Stubb,” Ahab shot back, “that you would stuff padding around me like that? Off you go. I had forgotten. Get back down to your nightly grave. Men like you sleep tangled in rigging, growing used to your final burial. Down, dog, get to your kennel!”
Stubb froze, caught off‑guard by the captain’s sudden, vicious anger. For a second he could not speak. Then his temper flared.
“Sir, I am not used to being spoken to in such fashion. I do not like it one bit, sir.”
“Enough!” Ahab ground his teeth together. He spun sharply away, fighting to hold back his rage.
“No, sir. Not yet,” Stubb pressed on, growing bolder. “I will not quietly stand being called a dog.”
“Then I will call you a donkey, a mule, an ass ten times over! Get out of my sight, or I will make you disappear from this ship!”
Ahab stepped toward him. His face held such terrifying fury that Stubb stepped back without thinking.
Stubb muttered to himself as he headed back down the cabin ladder.
“No one has ever talked to me like that without getting a punch in return. This is strange. Hold on Stubb. Should I march back up and hit him? Or — what is this thought — sink to my knees and pray for him? That is the very last thing I would ever do. Everything feels so odd. And he is the strangest old man I have ever sailed under.
He exploded at me in an instant. His eyes blazed like gunpowder ready to ignite. Is he insane? Something weighs heavy on his mind. Just like a deck plank that is about to split, you can tell something is wrong.
He barely sleeps. Steward Dough‑Boy says his hammock is always a mess each morning. Sheets all tangled up, blankets knotted tight. His pillow burns hot, like someone laid a hot brick on it. That old man carries some kind of inner torment. Folks ashore call it a guilty conscience. Worse than a toothache, they say. I hope I never end up like that.
He is full of secrets. Dough‑Boy suspects he sneaks down into the rear hold every single night. What business has he got down there? Who is he meeting? That is plain weird. But there is no way to know. That is just how life at sea goes.
Time for me to get some sleep. Man, being alive is worth it just so you can fall asleep. Babies start off doing exactly that, funny enough. Come to think of it, almost everything in this world is strange. Though I try not to overthink things. My personal eleventh commandment: do not think. Twelfth: sleep whenever you get the chance.
Wait a second. He called me a dog. Damn it! He called me a donkey over and over, piled on every insult he could think of. Might as well have kicked me. Maybe he did and I was too shocked to notice. His face was terrifying, bone‑pale and blazing.
What is wrong with me? I feel unsteady on my feet. Clashing with that old captain has turned me all inside out. Maybe I dreamed the whole thing. There is nothing I can do but let it go. Back to my hammock. I will see how this whole mess looks in the bright morning light.”