time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and
not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of
Nantucket! The same!--the same!--the same to Noah as to me. There's a
soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead
somewhere--to something else than common land, more palmy than the
palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward, then;
the better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old
mast-head! What's this?--green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped
cracks. No such green weather stains on Ahab's head! There's the
difference now between man's old age and matter's. But aye, old mast,
we both grow old together; sound in our hulls, though, are we not my
ship? Aye, minus a leg, that's all. By heaven this dead wood has the
better of my live flesh every way. I can't compare with it; and I've
known some ships made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of
the most vital stuff of vital fathers. What's that he said? he should
still go before me, my pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where?
Will I have eyes at the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those
endless stairs? and all night I've been sailing from him, wherever he
did sink to. Aye, aye, like many more thou told'st direful truth as
touching thyself, O Parsee; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good
by, mast-head--keep a good eye upon the whale, the while I'm gone.
We'll talk to-morrow, nay, to-night, when the white whale lies down
there, tied by head and tail."

He gave the word! and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered
through the cloven blue air to the deck.

In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop's
stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the
mate,--who held one of the tackle-ropes on deck--and bade him pause.