Moby Dick

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ships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water. But
as this conductor must descend to considerable depth, that its end may
avoid all contact with the hull; and as moreover, if kept constantly
towing there, it would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering
not a little with some of the rigging, and more or less impeding the
vessel's way in the water; because of all this, the lower parts of a
ship's lightning-rods are not always overboard; but are generally made
in long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the
chains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may require.

"The rods! the rods!" cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly admonished to
vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just been darting flambeaux,
to light Ahab to his post. "Are they overboard? drop them over, fore and
aft. Quick!"

"Avast!" cried Ahab; "let's have fair play here, though we be the weaker
side. Yet I'll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and Andes, that