the tossed ship they cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere
this through prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and
ventilated them, and now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces.
Out upon it!--it's tainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such
a wicked, miserable world. I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink
there. And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever
conquered it? In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow. Run
tilting at it, and you but run through it. Ha! a coward wind that
strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow.
Even Ahab is a braver thing--a nobler thing than _that_. Would now the
wind but had a body; but all the things that most exasperate and
outrage mortal man, all these things are bodiless, but only bodiless as
objects, not as agents. There's a most special, a most cunning, oh, a
most malicious difference! And yet, I say again, and swear it now,
that there's something all glorious and gracious in the wind. These
warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on,
in strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their
mark, however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and
mightiest Mississipies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain
where to go at last. And by the eternal Poles! these same Trades that
so directly blow my good ship on; these Trades, or something like
them--something so unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my keeled
soul along! To it! Aloft there! What d'ye see?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon goes a-begging! See the sun!
Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start?
Aye, he's chasing _me_ now; not I, _him_--that's bad; I might have
known it, too. Fool! the lines--the harpoons he's towing. Aye, aye, I