Moby Dick

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but quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb and Flask--who
in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his feelings--likewise
unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though some of them lowly
rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate. But as
ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed;
or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into their
congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's.

For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But
chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper
sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck.

"Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pilot! yesterday I wrecked
thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But
Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck--a lance without
a pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker's needles.
Quick!"