前文已述，如何从桅顶遥见巨兽的身影；如何逐之过水泽荒原，戮之于深渊之谷；如何曳傍船侧，斩其首级；又如何（依古时刽子手得被杀者衣袍之旧例）其厚垫大氅归行刑者所有；如何适时判入釜镬，如沙得拉、米煞、亚伯尼歌一般，其鲸蜡、油与骨安然过火而无损；——然今犹待终此卷末章，重述——若可，且歌之——倾油入桶、坠桶入舱之浪漫情事：巨兽再返故渊深处，如昔滑行于波下；然哀哉！永不再浮而喷潮。
油尚温，如热潘趣酒，注入六桶之樽；而当 ship 或于午夜海中起伏摇簸，巨桶被转推倾侧，首尾倒调，有时危滑过腻湿甲板，如山崩之泻，终以人力制而止之；桶箍四周，锤声叮叮，凡能击者皆击，因今 sailors 人人为桶匠，乃职所当然。
终也，末品入桶，万物既凉，乃启大舱口之封，开船腹之藏，桶坠而下，永息于海。既毕，舱盖复掩，密闭塞如壁橱之封。
于捕鲸之业，此或最异之事。一日间，板流鲜血与油之泉；圣后甲板上，巨鲸之首肉被渎累如丘；锈桶横陈，如酿酒之场；熬油之烟煤染遍舷墙；水手周身油腻；全船似即巨兽本身；而四方喧声，震耳欲聋。
然一二日后，汝顾四周，耸耳于此同舟；若非舟中艇与熬坊泄其秘，几誓此乃肃静商船，有极洁之船长。未炼之鲸蜡油，有奇洁之德。此所以甲板于所谓“油事”之后，最显其白。且焚鲸残屑之灰，可易制烈碱；凡鲸背之黏着留于舷者，此碱立除之。手勤沿舷，提水携布，复其洁齐。下索之煤，刷而去之。诸用过的器具，亦净拭藏妥。大舱洗毕，覆于熬坊，釜镬尽隐；桶皆不现；绳索卷藏幽隅；及合舟之人并力同时，此慎职终竟，则众水手亦自沐浴；自顶至踵更衣；终出至净板，鲜洁辉然，如新婚之婿自细麻中被起。
今也，步扬而登，二三成行，谐谈厅室、沙发、地毯、轻绸；议铺甲板为席；思悬物于桅；不拒月下前舱饮茶。若以此香众水手言油、骨、脂，几近无礼。彼不知汝远所指何物。去！取巾来！
然视其上：三桅之巅，三人立而伺更多之鲸；若得，必再污旧橡之具，且至少遗一油斑于某处。然也；屡有之时，极劳不息，不知有夜；直续九十六时；自小艇中，终日摇桨于赤道线，腕已肿；——仅登板以曳巨链，转重盘，割且劈，噫，且于汗中复为赤道日与熬坊之火所熏灼；当此之后，终奋起洁船，使如净乳室；屡有之时，可怜辈方扣净衣之领，忽惊“看哪，她喷了！”之声；遂飞去斗他鲸，重历疲途。哦！吾友，此真杀人之工！然此即生。盖吾侪凡人，劳久方从此世巨躯中提取微而贵之鲸蜡；乃以倦忍自涤其污，学居洁灵之庐；方毕，而——她喷了！——魂已喷起，吾辈复航斗他世，重历少时之旧途。
哦！轮回！哦！毕达哥拉斯，二千年前死于明希腊，善且智且温；昨航吾与汝偕行秘鲁之岸——而愚如我，教汝，一青钝之童，如何接绳！
Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off
descried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors,
and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed
alongside and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the
headsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his
great padded surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in
due time, he is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the
fire;—but now it remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of
the description by rehearsing—singing, if I may—the romantic proceeding
of decanting off his oil into the casks and striking them down into the
hold, where once again leviathan returns to his native profundities,
sliding along beneath the surface as before; but, alas! never more to
rise and blow.
While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the
six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling
this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed
round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot
across the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last
man-handled and stayed in their course; and all round the hoops, rap,
rap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, _ex officio_,
every sailor is a cooper.
At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the
great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open,
and down go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the
hatches are replaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up.
In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable
incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream
with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous
masses of the whale’s head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie
about, as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted
all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the
entire ship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din
is deafening.
But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this
self-same ship; and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works,
you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a
most scrupulously neat commander. The unmanufactured sperm oil
possesses a singularly cleansing virtue. This is the reason why the
decks never look so white as just after what they call an affair of
oil. Besides, from the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a
potent lye is readily made; and whenever any adhesiveness from the back
of the whale remains clinging to the side, that lye quickly
exterminates it. Hands go diligently along the bulwarks, and with
buckets of water and rags restore them to their full tidiness. The soot
is brushed from the lower rigging. All the numerous implements which
have been in use are likewise faithfully cleansed and put away. The
great hatch is scrubbed and placed upon the try-works, completely
hiding the pots; every cask is out of sight; all tackles are coiled in
unseen nooks; and when by the combined and simultaneous industry of
almost the entire ship’s company, the whole of this conscientious duty
is at last concluded, then the crew themselves proceed to their own
ablutions; shift themselves from top to toe; and finally issue to the
immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as bridegrooms new-leaped from
out the daintiest Holland.
Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and
humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics;
propose to mat the deck; think of having hanging to the top; object not
to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to
such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short
of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and
bring us napkins!
But mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men intent
on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will again soil
the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small grease-spot
somewhere. Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest
uninterrupted labors, which know no night; continuing straight through
for ninety-six hours; when from the boat, where they have swelled their
wrists with all day rowing on the Line,—they only step to the deck to
carry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash,
yea, and in their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the
combined fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works;
when, on the heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves
to cleanse the ship, and make a spotless dairy room of it; many is the
time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks,
are startled by the cry of “There she blows!” and away they fly to
fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my
friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we
mortals by long toilings extracted from this world’s vast bulk its
small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed
ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean
tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when—_There she
blows!_—the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other
world, and go through young life’s old routine again.
Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two
thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with
thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage—and, foolish as I am, taught
thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope!
