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Never could Starbuck forget the old man’s aspect , when one night going down into the cabin to mark how the barometer stood , he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his floor - screwed chair ; the rain and half - melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before emerged , still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat . On the table beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides and currents which have previously been spoken of . His lantern swung from his tightly clenched hand . Though the body was erect , the head was thrown back so that the closed eyes were pointed towards the needle of the tell - tale that swung from a beam in the ceiling . * * The cabin - compass is called the tell - tale , because without going to the compass at the helm , the Captain , while below , can inform himself of the course of the ship . Terrible old man ! thought Starbuck with a shudder , sleeping in this gale , still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose . CHAPTER 52 . The Albatross . South - eastward from the Cape , off the distant Crozetts , a good cruising ground for Right Whalemen , a sail loomed ahead , the Goney ( Albatross ) by name . As she slowly drew nigh , from my lofty perch at the fore - mast - head , I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro in the far ocean fisheries — a whaler at sea , and long absent from home . As if the waves had been fullers , this craft was bleached like the skeleton of a stranded walrus . All down her sides , this spectral appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust , while all her spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred over with hoar - frost . Only her lower sails were set . A wild sight it was to see her long - bearded look - outs at those three mast - heads . They seemed clad in the skins of beasts , so torn and bepatched the raiment that had survived nearly four years of cruising . Standing in iron hoops nailed to the mast , they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea ; and though , when the ship slowly glided close under our stern , we six men in the air came so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped from the mast - heads of one ship to those of the other ; yet , those forlorn - looking fishermen , mildly eyeing us as they passed , said not one word to our own look - outs , while the quarter - deck hail was being heard from below . “ Ship ahoy ! Have ye seen the White Whale ? ”
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