那是个周六的夜晚，随之而来的安息日又是何等光景！所有捕鲸人天生都是破坏安息日的行家。象牙色的“裴廓德号”仿佛变成了屠宰场；每个水手都成了屠夫。你简直会以为我们在向海神献祭一万头红牛。
首先，那套巨大的切割滑车——连同其他笨重物件，包括一簇通常漆成绿色的滑轮组，单凭一人绝无力举起——这串巨大的“葡萄”被吊上主桅顶，牢牢绑在下桅头上，那是甲板之上最结实的地方。穿过这些复杂滑轮的缆绳般粗的绳子末端，被引到起锚机旁，滑车巨大的下块被荡过鲸鱼上方；那把重约一百磅的大脂钩，就挂在这下块上。此时，斯塔巴克和斯塔布两位大副悬在舷侧的踏板上，手持长铲，开始在鱼体靠近两侧胸鳍中较近的一鳍上方挖洞，以便下钩。洞挖好后，便沿洞割出一道宽阔的半圆形线，钩子插进去，全体船员齐声唱起狂野的号子，密密麻麻挤作一团，开始拉动起锚机。
刹那间，整艘船向一侧倾覆；每一颗铆钉都像老房子在寒天里钉头般蹦跳；船身颤抖、战栗，惊惶的桅顶朝天空乱点。船越来越向鲸鱼歪斜，起锚机每一次喘气般的拉动，都得到浪涛助有一把力的回应；直到最后，听见一声迅疾而惊人的脆响；随着一大片哗啦水声，船从鲸鱼处向上向后滚开，得胜的滑车升入视野，拖在后面的是剥下的第一片脂皮的半圆形端头。
既然脂皮裹住鲸鱼恰如橘皮裹住橘子，它从鱼身上剥下也恰如橘子有时被旋着剥下一般。起锚机持续不断的拉力使鲸鱼在水中不停翻滚，而脂皮沿称为“斜口”的线被两位大副斯塔巴克和斯塔布的铲子同时割开，均匀成片地剥下；正如它被剥下得那样快，事实上也正借这剥下的动作，它时刻被吊得越来越高，直到上端擦着主桅顶；起锚机旁的人便停手不拉，这一两分钟内，那滴血的庞然血肉左右摇摆，宛若自天而降，在场众人须小心躲闪，否则它摆过来会扇肿耳朵，将人一头抛下海去。
一名随侍的标枪手此时持一柄称“登船剑”的细长利刃上前，看准时机，灵巧地从摇摆肉块的下部削出个大洞。第二根交替使用的大滑车端头便钩入此洞，咬住脂皮，以备后续。于是这位剑手喝令众人退避，再次向肉块做科学一刺，几记斜挑、拼命突刺的削割，将它彻底斩为两截；于是短的下截仍被系住，长的上截称为“毯片”，荡然悬空，只待放下。前方拉索者重唱号子，当一副滑车从鲸身剥起并吊起第二片时，另一副缓缓放松，第一片便穿过主舱口直落下方，进入一间无陈设的客厅，唤作脂房。在这暮光微暗的舱里，几双灵巧的手不停将长毯片盘起，仿佛那是一大团活着的辫蛇。
活儿便如此推进；两副滑车同时升降；鲸与起锚机齐力拉，拉者唱，脂房先生盘，大副割斜口，船呻吟，众人偶发几声咒骂，权当润滑总的摩擦。
It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex officio
professors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory Pequod was
turned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a butcher. You would
have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods.
In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other ponderous
things comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted green, and
which no single man can possibly lift—this vast bunch of grapes was
swayed up to the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head, the
strongest point anywhere above a ship’s deck. The end of the
hawser-like rope winding through these intricacies, was then conducted
to the windlass, and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over
the whale; to this block the great blubber hook, weighing some one
hundred pounds, was attached. And now suspended in stages over the
side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates, armed with their long spades,
began cutting a hole in the body for the insertion of the hook just
above the nearest of the two side-fins. This done, a broad,
semicircular line is cut round the hole, the hook is inserted, and the
main body of the crew striking up a wild chorus, now commence heaving
in one dense crowd at the windlass. When instantly, the entire ship
careens over on her side; every bolt in her starts like the nail-heads
of an old house in frosty weather; she trembles, quivers, and nods her
frighted mast-heads to the sky. More and more she leans over to the
whale, while every gasping heave of the windlass is answered by a
helping heave from the billows; till at last, a swift, startling snap
is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls upwards and backwards from
the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging after it
the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of blubber. Now as
the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an orange,
so is it stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is sometimes
stripped by spiralizing it. For the strain constantly kept up by the
windlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the
water, and as the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the
line called the “scarf,” simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck
and Stubb, the mates; and just as fast as it is thus peeled off, and
indeed by that very act itself, it is all the time being hoisted higher
and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the main-top; the men at the
windlass then cease heaving, and for a moment or two the prodigious
blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from the sky, and
every one present must take good heed to dodge it when it swings, else
it may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard.
One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon
called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices
out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into
this hole, the end of the second alternating great tackle is then
hooked so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for
what follows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands
to stand off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a
few sidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs it completely in
twain; so that while the short lower part is still fast, the long upper
strip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all ready for
lowering. The heavers forward now resume their song, and while the one
tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other
is slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip through the
main hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the
blubber-room. Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep
coiling away the long blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of
plaited serpents. And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting
and lowering simultaneously; both whale and windlass heaving, the
heavers singing, the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates
scarfing, the ship straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by
way of assuaging the general friction.
