im standing in the cabin-scuttle,--his
living foot advanced upon the deck, as if to step; his hat slouched
heavily over his eyes; so that however motionless he stood, however the
days and nights were added on, that he had not swung in his hammock;
yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never tell unerringly
whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at times; or whether
he was still intently scanning them; no matter, though he stood so in
the scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and the unheeded night-damp
gathered in beads of dew upon that stone-carved coat and hat. The
clothes that the night had wet, the next day's sunshine dried upon him;
and so, day after day, and night after night; he went no more beneath
the planks; whatever he wanted from the cabin that thing he sent for.

He ate in the same open air; that is, his two only meals,--breakfast and
dinner: supper he never touched; nor reaped his beard; which darkly grew
all gnarled, as unearthed roots of trees blown over, which still grow
idly on at naked base, though perished in the upper verdure. But though
his whole life was now become one watch on deck; and though the Parsee's
mystic watch was without intermission as his own; yet these two never
seemed to speak--one man to the other--unless at long intervals some
passing unmomentous matter made it necessary. Though such a potent spell
seemed secretly to join the twain; openly, and to the awe-struck crew,
they seemed pole-like asunder. If by day they chanced to speak one word;
by night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned the slightest verbal
interchange. At times, for longest hours, without a single hail, they
stood far parted in the starlight; Ahab in his scuttle, the Parsee by
the mainmast; but still fixedly gazing upon each other; as if in the
Parsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the Parsee his abandoned
substance.

And yet, somehow, did Ahab--in his own proper self, as daily, hourly,
and every instant, commandingly revealed to his subordinates,--Ahab
seemed an independent lord; the Parsee but his slave. Still again both
seemed yoked together, and an unseen tyrant driving them; the lean shade
siding the solid rib. For be this Parsee what he may, all rib and keel
was solid Ahab.

At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard
from aft,--"Man the mast-heads!"--and all through the day, till after
sunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, a