"Speak, thou
vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished
with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak,
mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all
divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper
sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where
unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot;
where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with
bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land,
there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver
never went; hast slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless
mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the
locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart
they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven
seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by
pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper
midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on
unharmed--while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that
would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms.
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