"Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming�"Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the fin, where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!"
"Then God keep thee, old man�see'st thou that"�pointing to the hammock�"I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only THAT one I bury; the rest were buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb." Then turning to his crew�"Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and lift the body; so, then�Oh! God"�advancing towards the hammock with uplifted hands�"may the resurrection and the life�"
"Brace forward! Up helm!" cried Ahab like lightning to his men.
As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy hanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous relief.
"Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!" cried a foreboding voice in her wake. "In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your taffrail to show us your coffin!"