The Hyena
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixedaffair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vastpractical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and morethan 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 anostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. Andas for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster,peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to himonly sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed bythe unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of waywardmood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extremetribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so thatwhat just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous,now seems but a part of the general joke. There is nothing like theperils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial,desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole voyageof the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object.
"Queequeg," said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to thedeck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off thewater; "Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing oftenhappen?" 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 hisoil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; "Mr. Stubb, Ithink I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, ourchief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent. Isuppose then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set ina foggy squall is the height of a whaleman's discretion?""Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a galeoff Cape Horn."
"Mr. Flask," said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standingclose by; "you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will youtell me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask,for an oarsman to break his own back pulling himself back-foremostinto 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 faceforemost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mindthat!"
Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberatestatement of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls andcapsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, werematters of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that atthe superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I mustresign my life into the hands of him who steered the boat-oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment is in his impetuousnessupon the point of scuttling the craft with his own franticstampings; considering that the particular disaster to our ownparticular boat was chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck's driving onto his whale almost in the teeth of a squall, and considering thatStarbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his great heedfulness in thefishery; considering that I belonged to this uncommonly prudentStarbuck's boat; and finally considering in what a devil's chase I wasimplicated, touching the White Whale: taking all things together, Isay, I thought I might as well go below and make a rough draft of mywill. "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 attheir last wills and testaments, but there are no people in theworld more fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in mynautical life that I had done the same thing. After the ceremony wasconcluded upon the present occasion, I felt all the easier; a stonewas rolled away from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now livewould be as good as the days that Lazarus lived after hisresurrection; a supplementary clean gain of so many months or weeks asthe case may be. I survived myself; my death and burial were locked upin my chest. I looked round me tranquilly and contentedly, like aquiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bars of asnug family vault.
Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of myfrock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death anddestruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.
