About midnight
You , Daggoo ! overboard you go , and cut me one from his small ! '' Here be it known , that though these wild fishermen do not , as a general thing , and according to the great military maxim , make the enemy defray the current expenses of the war -LRB- at least before realizing the proceeds of the voyage -RRB- , yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers who have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale designated by Stubb ; comprising the tapering extremity of the body . About midnight that steak was cut and cooked ; and lighted by two lanterns of sperm oil , Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper at the capstan-head , as if that capstan were a sideboard . Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on whale 's flesh that night . Mingling their mumblings with his own mastications , thousands on thousands of sharks , swarming round the dead leviathan , smackingly feasted on its fatness . The few sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharp slapping of their tails against the hull , within a few inches of the sleepers ' hearts .