Page 384 - moby-dick

instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom would
not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in
all vessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of
the boys, if boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger
men in the Town-Ho that had been divided into gangs, tak-
ing turns at the pumps; and being the most athletic seaman
of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly assigned captain of
one of the gangs; consequently he should have been freed
from any trivial business not connected with truly nautical
duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all
these particulars so that you may understand exactly how
this affair stood between the two men.
‘But there was more than this: the order about the shovel
was almost as plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as
though Radney had spat in his face. Any man who has gone
sailor in a whale-ship will understand this; and all this and
doubtless much more, the Lakeman fully comprehended
when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat still for a
moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate’s malig-
nant eye and perceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped
up in him and the slow-match silently burning along to-
wards them; as he instinctively saw all this, that strange
forbearance and unwillingness to stir up the deeper pas-
sionateness in any already ireful being—a repugnance most
felt, when felt at all, by really valiant men even when ag-
grieved—this nameless phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole
over Steelkilt.
‘Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by
the bodily exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered