The Hyena — Moby-Dick

After great danger, Ishmael says some men start to see life as one big practical joke. The universe seems to be laughing, and the joke is mostly on them.

In that mood even death feels like a playful punch from an unseen joker. Whaling, he says, breeds this strange, reckless calm. He now looks at the Pequod voyage and Moby Dick that way.

Back on deck after the squall, Ishmael asks Queequeg if boats often capsize like that. Queequeg calmly says yes.

He then questions Stubb about Starbuck's famous caution. Stubb admits he once lowered boats from a leaking ship in a Cape Horn gale.

Flask jokes that whalemen are not meant to row backward into a whale's jaws. All three agree that storms, swamping, and near drowning are normal in this trade.

Ishmael thinks it over. He belongs to careful Starbuck's boat. Yet Starbuck had driven straight toward a whale in a squall. Ishmael had put his life in the hands of men who might panic and wreck the boat.

On top of that, he is caught up in Ahab's mad hunt for the White Whale. So he decides to go below and write his will.

He asks Queequeg to be his lawyer and witness. It is the fourth will he has made at sea. Sailors, he notes, often do this.

When the will is done, he feels lighter. He says he has survived himself. He rolls up his sleeves and gets ready to face death again.