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CHAPTER 4 Our First Whale

“Whale!” shouted Tashtego from the top of the ship. “Whale!” Captain Ahab came quickly. “Get the boats!” he shouted. The whale sent a shower of water up into the sky.

Suddenly five men came up from below and stood by Captain Ahab. Their faces were dark and they had long black hair. They wore strange wide pants and no shirts or shoes. One of the men was older. He was darker and only had one tooth. He wore a strange white hat, so we couldn’t see his hair. His black eyes looked only at Captain Ahab. These were Captain Ahab’s devils!

“Fedallah! Go!” Captain Ahab shouted to this man.

Three small boats went down into the water. Captain Ahab’s men came too, in their boat. His men were strong and their boat quickly sailed in front of ours.

I turned to Pip. “I understand now! These are the men! You heard them speaking before!”

“I told you!” Pip shouted back.

“Stop talking and row!” shouted Stubb from the back. “Do you think this is a tea party?” Stubb always shouted at us—but we were never afraid of him. He always had a smile on his face.

Starbuck was the captain of our small boat. He didn’t talk to us, but we heard him say quietly, “Who are those men? What’s Captain Ahab doing?” Captain Ahab shouted to his boat from the Pequod, but his men only had ears for Fedallah. Their eyes never left Fedallah’s face and their boat went faster and faster.

This was my first whale! “Maybe we’ll kill it!” I thought. I was excited. Every whaler was excited. But why weren’t we afraid? Because our heads were full of money—oil—gold!

The sky suddenly turned dark with rain, but we didn’t go back.

“We have time. We can kill a whale before the heavy rain comes,” said Starbuck.

Queequcg stood ready with his harpoon in the front of our boat. Suddenly the whale was there again. It came up out ot the water—under our boat! Men and harpoons went everywhere. Then the heavy rain came. In minutes our boat was full ot water. Strong winds took our sails down. The whale left us and swam down into the dark water.

After some time the wind stopped. We waited, and day turned to night. We couldn’t see anything. Where were we? Where were the other boats? The men weren’t angry with Starbuck. The weather can play games with the best sailors.

More hours came and went. We were wet, tired, and afraid. Then we saw a large black thing in the water. Was it the whale again? No! It was the Pcquod. But the men couldn’t see us!

“It’s going to hit us!” shouted Stubb. We jumped into the ocean and began to shout for help. When the men on the Peqtwd heard us, they put ropes down. Then they helped us onto the ship. The other men were there—Captain Ahab’s men too. They turned back when they didn’t see the white whale.