Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb — Moby-Dick

Ice and icebergs astern, the Pequod rolls through bright Quito spring on the threshold of eternal August, days like crystal goblets of Persian sherbet and starred nights haughty as jewelled dames, yet all these witcheries turn inward on the soul when still mild hours of eve arrive and memory shoots her crystals as clear ice in noiseless twilight, working more and more on Ahab's texture while old greybeard captains haunt the night-cloaked deck and for Ahab descending the narrow scuttle to berth feels like going down into one's tomb.

When steady quietude prevails, sailors drop ropes with cautiousness lest they disturb slumbering shipmates, and usually Ahab abstains from patrolling the quarter-deck because to wearied mates seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel the reverberating crack would set their dreams on crunching shark teeth; but once the mood is on him too deep for common regardings, lumber-like he measures the ship from taffrail to mainmast until Stubb, with unassured deprecating humorousness, hints at muffling the ivory heel in a globe of tow.

Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb, that thou wouldst wad me that fashion? Ahab cries, then Down, dog, and kennel; when Stubb says he will not tamely be called a dog, Ahab grits ten times donkey and mule and ass and advances with overbearing terrors until Stubb involuntarily retreats, muttering he was never served so without giving a hard blow for it.

Alone below Stubb spirals between striking back and praying for the first time, hearing from Dough-Boy of rumpled hammock clothes, frightful hot pillow, nightly trips to the after hold, guessing conscience a tic-dolly-row worse than toothache, then commanding himself Think not, is my eleventh commandment, and sleep when you can, is my twelfth, to stash the plaguey juggling till daylight: when Ahab sends for his pipe in the next chapter, will he smoke peace or throw wrath overboard?