Moby Dick

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In compliance with the standing order of his commander--to report
immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, any decided change
in the affairs of the deck,--Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the yards to
the breeze--however reluctantly and gloomily,--than he mechanically went
below to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance.

Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before it
a moment. The cabin lamp--taking long swings this way and that--was
burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man's bolted
door,--a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels.
The isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain humming
silence to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of
the elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as
they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck was an honest,
upright man; but out of Starbuck's heart, at that instant when he saw
the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so blent with
its neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew