your sail set in a foggy
squall is the height of a whaleman's discretion?"

"Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale off Cape
Horn."

"Mr. Flask," said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standing close
by; "you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you tell
me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask, for an
oarsman to break his own back pulling himself back-foremost into death's
jaws?"

"Can't you twist that smaller?" said Flask. "Yes, that's the law.
I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a whale face
foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind
that!"

Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate statement
of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls and capsizings
in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were matters
of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the
superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign my
life into the hands of him who steered the boat--oftentimes a fellow who
at that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling
the craft with his own frantic stampings; considering that the
particular disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to be imputed
to Starbuck's driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall,
and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his
great heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged to this
uncommonly prudent Starbuck's boat; and finally considering in what a
devil's chase I was implicated, touching the White Whale: taking all
things together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make a
rough draft of my will. "Queequeg," said I, "come along, you shall be my
lawyer, executor, and legatee."

It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their
last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more
fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in my nautical life
that I had done the same thing. After the ceremony was concluded upon
the present occasion, I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled away
from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good
as the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a supplementary
clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case might be. I survived
myself; my death and burial were locked up in my chest. I looked
round me tra