“And I only am escaped alone to tell .”
Job
The drama’s done. Why then here does anyone step forth?—Because one did survive the wreck.
It so chanced, that after the Parsee’s disappearance, I was he whom the Fates to take the place of Ahab’s bowsman, when that bowsman assumed the post; the same, who, when on the last day the three men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped . So, floating on the margin of the scene, and in full sight of it, when the halfspent of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards the closing . When I reached it, it had to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did . Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, by reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force, the life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.