midnight
I am indeed down-hearted when you walk over me . But here I 'll stay , though this stern strikes rocks ; and they bulge through ; and oysters come to join me . '' The Hat And now that at the proper time and place , after so long and wide a preliminary cruise , Ahab , -- all other whaling waters swept -- seemed to have chased his foe into an oceanfold , to slay him the more securely there ; now , that he found himself hard by the very latitude and longitude where his tormenting wound had been inflicted ; now that a vessel had been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually encountered Moby Dick ; -- and now that all his successive meetings with various ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indifference with which the white whale tore his hunters , whether sinning or sinned against ; now it was that there lurked a something in the old man 's eyes , which it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see . As the unsetting polar star , which through the livelong , arctic , six months ' night sustains its piercing , steady , central gaze ; so Ahab 's purpose now fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew . It domineered above them so , that all their bodings , doubts , misgivings , fears , were fain to hide beneath their souls , and not sprout forth a single spear or leaf . In this foreshadowing interval , too , all humor , forced or natural , vanished . Stubb no more strove to raise a smile ; Starbuck no more strove to check one .