Moby Dick

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and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in
question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the
Jeroboam. His story was this:

He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna
Shakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked, secret
meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a
trap-door, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial, which he
carried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of containing gunpowder,
was supposed to be charged with laudanum. A strange, apostolic whim
having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with
that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, common-sense
exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate for the
Jeroboam's whaling voyage. They engaged him; but straightway upon
the ship's getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a
freshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded
the captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby