.. < chapter cxiii 2  THE FORGE >


     With matted beard, and swathed in a

bristling shark-skin apron, about mid-day, Perth was standing between his

forge and anvil, the latter placed upon an iron-wood log, with one hand

holding a pike-head in the coals, and with the other at his forge's lungs,

when captain ahab came along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking

leathern bag.  While yet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused;


     till at last, Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it

upon the anvil --the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering

flights, some of which flew close to Ahab.  Are these thy Mother Carey's

chickens, Perth?  they are always flying in thy wake; birds of good omen,

too, but not to all; --look here, they burn; but thou--thou liv'st among them

without a scorch.  Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab, answered

Perth, resting for a moment on his hammer; I am past scorching; not easily

can'st thou scorch a scar.  Well, well; no more.  Thy shrunk voice sounds

too calmly, sanely woful to me.  In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of

all misery in others that is not mad.  Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith;

say, why dost thou not go mad?  How can'st thou endure without being mad?  Do

the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad? --What wert thou

making there?  Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in

it.  And can'st thou make it all smooth, again, blacksmith, after such hard

usage as it had?  I think so, sir.  And I suppose thou can'st smoothe

almost any seams and dents; never mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?


     Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one.

.. <p 483 >


     Look ye here, then, cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning with

both hands on Perth's shoulders; look ye here -- here --can ye smoothe out a

seam like this, blacksmith, sweeping one hand across his ribbed brow;;if

thou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my head upon thy anvil,

and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes.  Answer!  Can'st thou smoothe

this seam?  Oh!  that is the one, sir!  Said I not all seams and dents but

one?  aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for

though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into the bone

of my skull -- that is all wrinkles!  But, away with child's play; no more

gaffs and pikes to-day.  Look ye here!  jingling the leathern bag, as if it

were full of gold coins.  I, too, want a harpoon made; one that a thousand

yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; something that will stick in a whale

like his own fin-bone.  There's the stuff, flinging the pouch upon the

anvil.  Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel

shoes of racing horses.  Horse-shoe stubbs, sir?  Why, Captain Ahab, thou

hast here, then, the best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work.  I

know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the melted

bones of murderers.  Quick!  forge me the harpoon.  And forge me first, twelve

rods for its shank; then wind, and twist, and hammer these twelve together

like the yarns and strands of a tow-line.  Quick!  I'll blow the fire.  When

at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by spiralling

them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt.  A flaw!  rejecting

the last one.  Work that over again, Perth.  This done, Perth was about to

begin welding the twelve into one, when Ahab stayed his hand, and said he

would weld his own iron.  As, then, with regular, gasping hems, he hammered

on the anvil, Perth passing to him the glowing rods, one after the other,

and the hard pressed forge shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee

passed silently, and bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking

some curse or some blessing on the toil.  But, as Ahab looked up, he slid

aside.

.. <p 484 >


     What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?  muttered Stubb,

looking on from the forecastle.  That Parsee smells fire like a fusee; and

smells of it himself, like a hot musket's powder-pan.  At last the shank, in

one complete rod, received its final heat; and as perth, to temper it, plunged

it all hissing into the cask of water near by, the scalding steam shot up

into Ahab's bent face.  Would'st thou brand me, Perth?  wincing for a moment

with the pain; have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?  Pray

God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab.  Is not this harpoon for

the White Whale?  For the white fiend!  But now for the barbs; thou must

make them thyself, man.  Here are my razors --the best of steel; here, and make

the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea.  For a moment, the old

blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would fain not use them.  Take them,

man, I have no need for them; for I now neither shave, sup, nor pray till

--but here --to work!  Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by

Perth to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the

blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering

them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near.  No, no --no water for

that; I want it of the true death-temper.  Ahoy, there!  Tashtego, Queequeg,

Daggoo!  What say ye, pagans!  Will ye give me as much blood as will cover

this barb?  holding it high up.  A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes.  Three

punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale's barbs were

then tempered.  Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!

deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the

baptismal blood.  Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one


     of hickory, with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the

socket of the iron.  A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some fathoms

of it taken to the windlass, and

.. <p 485 >

stretched to a great tension.  Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope

hummed like a harp-string, then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no

strandings, ahab exclaimed, good!  and now for the seizings.  At one

extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns were all

braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon; the pole was then driven

hard up into the socket; from the lower end the rope was traced half way along

the pole's length, and firmly secured so, with intertwistings of twine.

This done, pole, iron, and rope --like the Three Fates --remained inseparable,


     and Ahab moodily stalked away with the weapon; the sound of his ivory leg,

and the sound of the hickory pole, both hollowly ringing along every plank.

But ere he entered his cabin, a light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most

piteous sound was heard.  Oh, Pip!  thy wretched laugh, thy idle but

unresting eye; all thy strange mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the

black tragedy of the melancholy ship, and mocked it!

.. <p 485 >

