Moby Dick Page #3

-What next, Queequeg?

-Sail ship. You?

Tomorrow I hope to sign aboard any ship

in search of whales.

I sign, too. Your boat, my boat.

I eat same food. We sail on same waters.

We kill same whale.

We friends.

Same blood, same head, all same.

Well, which will it be, Queequeg?

The Tit-bit? Not a bad ship.

What do you say to the Devil-dam?

Pequod.

Well, now.

Look at the ivory she's wearing.

She's all tricked out

in the bones of her victims.

Those cleats made from whale's teeth.

And the tiller, Queequeg,

it's carved from a whale's jaw.

Ahoy there! Someone aboard?

Is this the captain of the Pequod?

What doest thee want of the captain?

We were thinking of shipping.

Thee art thinking of shipping.

I art.... I mean, I doest.

-Making sport of me, lad?

-No. I just fell into that manner of speech.

If I weren't a Quaker and a man of peace...

I'd fetch thee clout on the side of thy head,

my lad, just to make sure.

I see thee art no New Bedford man.

Doest know nothing at all about whaling,

I daresay.

I've had several voyages

in the merchant service.

Merchant service? Flukes, man.

-What takes thee whaling?

-Sir, I want to see what whaling is like.

Have you seen Ahab,

the captain of this ship?

If you want to know what whaling is...

then you'll know by clapping an eye

on Captain Ahab.

You'll see a man torn apart

from crown to heel...

and spliced together with

sperm whalebone in place of what's missing.

His looks tell more than any church-had

sermon about the mortality of man.

And a whale did that?

A whale as big as an island.

Art thee the man to pitch a harpoon

down a whale's throat and jump after it?

I am, sir...

if it should be positively indispensable

to do so.

Come along, then.

Bildad, stir yourself.

This young man says he wants to ship.

-Hast ever been a pirate, hast thee?

-Never.

-Didst not murder thy last captain at sea?

-lndeed not.

He'll do.

-What pay shall we give him?

-The 777th part.

-Would not be too much?

-For this strapping lad? Not half enough.

Captain Peleg, thee hast a generous heart.

But thee must consider the duty thee owest

to the other owners of this ship...

widows and orphans, many of them.

If we too abundantly reward

the labors of this young man...

we'll be taking bread from their mouths.

I'm putting him down

for the 300th part of the profit.

You hear, Bildad? The 300th part, I say.

"Lay not up for yourself

treasures upon earth...

"where moth and rust do corrupt."

-My last pay was--

-The 777th part seems fair enough to me.

-The 300th.

-Don't thank me, lad. I only do thee justice.

What holds thee? Sign.

-Sir, it's Captain Ahab.

-What about him?

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes