Diving below, the old man took a searching look at his barometer, noted the direction of the ship’s head, and then passed on to his own tiny state-room, slipped off his boots and sat down. Alone with his thoughts, they flew back again to that far-off time to which they had been directed by his contemplation of Rube. Slowly his head dropped upon his hands, lower and lower he bowed himself, until, utterly oblivious of all the sea-noises around him, of the uneasy motion of his ship as she headed the rising sea, or of his responsibility for the welfare of every soul on board, he slipped down upon his knees, and as simply as ever he did when a child, but with an added fervour, he lifted up his heart to God.
It was at least half an hour before he rose from his knees, but in the space of that brief period he had learned more than most men learn during the whole of their lives. Confessing his sins he asked for pardon, admitting his blindness he asked for sight, acknowledging his ignorance he asked for teaching; and he obtained all his desires. Then with a sense of lightness and freedom from care never before felt he lay down on his little settee to be ready for a call, and in about the space of one minute was fast asleep.
On deck, the scene to an uninitiate would have been appalling. With a monotonous, never-ceasing, and ever-increasing wail the wild wind bore down out of the windward blackness upon the brave old ship. A peep over the weather bulwarks revealed the long, long ranges of gleaming wave-crests rolling down upon her, their uncanny greenish light flickering against the black background and showing by the distances they were apart longitudinally how mightily the waves had grown. There was a fascination about them, too, which held the observer gazing until like a splash of small shot a spray of spindrift struck him in the face and sent him smarting to shelter. But as if it had been the finest of summer evenings the steady stress of labour continued. Up from the blubber-room were hurled the massive horse-pieces of blubber, carved with so much labour from the great blanket pieces by the slipping, struggling labourers below. Of all the strange places I have ever seen I think the blubber-room of a whaleship at night in a gale of wind is beyond comparison the strangest. It is a square space of about thirty feet each way and between six and seven feet high. Into it are piled the blanket pieces, those immense widths of blubber, each weighing a ton or so, which have been ripped from the carcass of the whale. In uncouth masses they lie one upon another, piled often almost to touching the beams overhead. As the ship rolls they glide and heave upon one another as if still actuated by the breath of the monster they so lately covered. From a beam, generally in a corner, swings a primitive lamp, little more than accentuating the darkness. And at the beginning of operations two dim forms crawl precariously about among those greasy masses, occasionally slipping a leg down into a temporary crevice and having it squeezed into numbness before being able to withdraw it. They wield short-handled spades like Dutch hoes, and with infinite labour hew off blocks from the masses of blubber of a fit size to pass through the mincer. When they have a dozen or so of these blocks ready they must needs in some unexplainable fashion balance themselves under the hatchway, and with a sort of diminutive pitchfork hurl the blocks (horse-pieces) upwards into a shallow trough secured to the coaming or upper edge of the hatch, whence the attendant on the mincer loads a tub with them and drags them away. And unless these blubber-room men be exceedingly skilful as well as strong, they will not only never have a breathing space during the six hours of their stay below, but will, in addition, have to bear much contumely from the officer in charge, who will be instant in his sarcastic inquiries as to what they may be doing below--whether they are asleep or not.