Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

the shell. ’Twill soon be out.”

The hours wore on;—Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pacing the
deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect.

It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the
bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and
with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody
aft.

“Sir!” said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on
ship-board except in some extraordinary case.

“Send everybody aft,” repeated Ahab. “Mast-heads, there! come down!”

When the entire ship’s company were assembled, and with curious and not
wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike
the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly
glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew,
started from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were nigh him
resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched
hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among
the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have
summoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat.