...Nasa, the Search for Water and the 'White Whale'!

The Pequod's whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the
head was hoisted against the ship's side - about half way out of
the sea, so that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native
element. And there with the strained craft steeply leaning over
to it, by reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower
mast-head, and every yard-arm on that side projecting like a crane
over the waves; there, that blood-dripping head hung to the
Pequod's waist like the giant Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith.

When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen
went below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous
but now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal
yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless
measureless leaves upon the sea.

A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab
alone from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he
paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains
he took Stubb's long spade - still remaining there after the whale's
decapitation - and striking it into the lower part of the half- suspended
mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so
stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.

It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst
of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert.

"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.
O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make
an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!"

"Sail ho!" cried a triumphant voice from the main-masthead.

"Aye? Well, now, that's cheering," cried Ahab, suddenly erecting
himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow.
"That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert
a better man. - Where away?"

"Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down
her breeze to us!"

"Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come
along that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze!
O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance
are your linked analogies! not the smallest atom stirs or lives
on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind."



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