Moby Dick

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to some one man who has the special watch of it. Because in such a
wilderness of running rigging, whose various different relations aloft
cannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at the
deck; and when the deck-ends of these ropes are being every few minutes
cast down from the fastenings, it would be but a natural fatality, if,
unprovided with a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor should by some
carelessness of the crew be cast adrift and fall all swooping to the
sea. So Ahab's proceedings in this matter were not unusual; the only
strange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck, almost the one
only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with anything in the
slightest degree approaching to decision--one of those too, whose
faithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt somewhat;--it was
strange, that this was the very man he should select for his watchman;
freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person's
hands.

Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there ten