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CHAPTER 71 . The Jeroboam’s Story . Hand in hand , ship and breeze blew on ; but the breeze came faster than the ship , and soon the Pequod began to rock . By and by , through the glass the stranger’s boats and manned mast - heads proved her a whale - ship . But as she was so far to windward , and shooting by , apparently making a passage to some other ground , the Pequod could not hope to reach her . So the signal was set to see what response would be made . Here be it said , that like the vessels of military marines , the ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal ; all which signals being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels attached , every captain is provided with it . Thereby , the whale commanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean , even at considerable distances and with no small facility . The Pequod’s signal was at last responded to by the stranger’s setting her own ; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket . Squaring her yards , she bore down , ranged abeam under the Pequod’s lee , and lowered a boat ; it soon drew nigh ; but , as the side - ladder was being rigged by Starbuck’s order to accommodate the visiting captain , the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat’s stern in token of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary . It turned out that the Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board , and that Mayhew , her captain , was fearful of infecting the Pequod’s company . For , though himself and boat’s crew remained untainted , and though his ship was half a rifle - shot off , and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between ; yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the land , he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the Pequod . But this did by no means prevent all communications . Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and the ship , the Jeroboam’s boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to the Pequod , as she heavily forged through the sea ( for by this time it blew very fresh ) , with her main - topsail aback ; though , indeed , at times by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave , the boat would be pushed some way ahead ; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings again . Subject to this , and other the like interruptions now and then , a conversation was sustained between the two parties ; but at intervals not without still another interruption of a very different sort . Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam’s boat , was a man of a singular appearance , even in that wild whaling life where individual notabilities make up all totalities . He was a small , short , youngish man , sprinkled all over his face with freckles , and wearing redundant yellow hair . A long - skirted , cabalistically - cut coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped him ; the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists . A deep , settled , fanatic delirium was in his eyes .
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