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To him then Hector with disdain return’d: (Fierce as he spoke, his eyes with fury burn’d:) “Are these the faithful counsels of thy tongue? Thy will is partial, not thy reason wrong: Or if the purpose of thy heart thou vent, Sure heaven resumes the little sense it lent. What coward counsels would thy madness move Against the word, the will reveal’d of Jove? The leading sign, the irrevocable nod, And happy thunders of the favouring god, These shall I slight, and guide my wavering mind By wandering birds that flit with every wind? Ye vagrants of the sky! your wings extend, Or where the suns arise, or where descend; To right, to left, unheeded take your way, While I the dictates of high heaven obey. Without a sign his sword the brave man draws, And asks no omen but his country’s cause. But why should’st thou suspect the war’s success? None fears it more, as none promotes it less: Though all our chiefs amidst yon ships expire, Trust thy own cowardice to escape their fire. Troy and her sons may find a general grave, But thou canst live, for thou canst be a slave. Yet should the fears that wary mind suggests Spread their cold poison through our soldiers’ breasts, My javelin can revenge so base a part, And free the soul that quivers in thy heart.”

“My dear madam,” replied he, “let us be for ever silent on this point. Far be it from me,” he presently continued, in a voice that marked his displeasure, “to resent the behaviour of your daughter. Resignation to inevitable evils is the duty of us all: the peculiar duty of a young man who has been so fortunate as I have been, in early preferment; and, I trust, I am resigned. Perhaps not the less so from feeling a doubt of my positive happiness had my fair cousin honoured me with her hand; for I have often observed, that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our estimation. You will not, I hope, consider me as showing any disrespect to your family, my dear madam, by thus withdrawing my pretensions to your daughter’s favour, without having paid yourself and Mr. Bennet the compliment of requesting you to interpose your authority in my behalf. My conduct may, I fear, be objectionable in having accepted my dismission from your daughter’s lips instead of your own; but we are all liable to error. I have certainly meant well through the whole affair. My object has been to secure an amiable companion for myself, with due consideration for the advantage of all your family; and if my manner has been at all reprehensible, I here beg leave to apologize.”

By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from the carcase; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild ocean darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the fierce flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to some vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and folded them in conflagrations.

“How oft, my brother, thy reproach I bear, For words well meant, and sentiments sincere? True to those counsels which I judge the best, I tell the faithful dictates of my breast. To speak his thoughts is every freeman’s right, In peace, in war, in council, and in fight; And all I move, deferring to thy sway, But tends to raise that power which I obey. Then hear my words, nor may my words be vain! Seek not this day the Grecian ships to gain; For sure, to warn us, Jove his omen sent, And thus my mind explains its clear event: The victor eagle, whose sinister flight Retards our host, and fills our hearts with fright, Dismiss’d his conquest in the middle skies, Allow’d to seize, but not possess the prize; Thus, though we gird with fires the Grecian fleet, Though these proud bulwalks tumble at our feet, Toils unforeseen, and fiercer, are decreed; More woes shall follow, and more heroes bleed. So bodes my soul, and bids me thus advise; For thus a skilful seer would read the skies.”

“All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You cook, fire the works.” This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been thrusting his shavings into the furnace throughout the passage. Here be it said that in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be fed for a time with wood. After that no wood is used, except as a means of quick ignition to the staple fuel. In a word, after being tried out, the crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains considerable of its unctuous properties. These fritters feed the flames. Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body. Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in it for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the pit.

Even yet the dauntless Lapithae maintain The dreadful pass, and round them heap the slain. First Damasus, by Polypœtes’ steel, Pierced through his helmet’s brazen visor, fell; The weapon drank the mingled brains and gore! The warrior sinks, tremendous now no more! Next Ormenus and Pylon yield their breath: Nor less Leonteus strews the field with death; First through the belt Hippomachus he gored, Then sudden waved his unresisted sword: Antiphates, as through the ranks he broke, The falchion struck, and fate pursued the stroke: Iamenus, Orestes, Menon, bled; And round him rose a monument of dead. Meantime, the bravest of the Trojan crew, Bold Hector and Polydamas, pursue; Fierce with impatience on the works to fall, And wrap in rolling flames the fleet and wall. These on the farther bank now stood and gazed, By Heaven alarm’d, by prodigies amazed: A signal omen stopp’d the passing host, Their martial fury in their wonder lost. Jove’s bird on sounding pinions beat the skies; A bleeding serpent of enormous size, His talons truss’d; alive, and curling round, He stung the bird, whose throat received the wound: Mad with the smart, he drops the fatal prey, In airy circles wings his painful way, Floats on the winds, and rends the heaven with cries: Amidst the host the fallen serpent lies. They, pale with terror, mark its spires unroll’d, And Jove’s portent with beating hearts behold. Then first Polydamas the silence broke, Long weigh’d the signal, and to Hector spoke: