Meantime, of the broken
keel of Ahab's wrecked craft the carpenter made him another leg; while
still as on the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his
scuttle; his hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its
dial; sat due eastward for the earliest sun.
THIRD DAY.
The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once more the
solitary night-man at the fore-masthead was relieved by crowds of the
daylight lookouts, who dotted every mast and almost every spar.
"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight.
"In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's all.
Helm there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What a lovely
day again! were it a new-made world, and made for a summer-house to the
angels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a
fairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here's food for thought,
had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels,
feels; _that's_ tingling enough for mortal man! to think's audacity.
God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a
coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains
beat too much for that.
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