hours after midnight
The Musket During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon , the man at the Pequod 's jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by its spasmodic motions even though preventer tackles had been attached to it -- for they were slack -- because some play to the tiller was indispensable . In a severe gale like this , while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock to the blast , it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the compasses , at intervals , go round and round . It was thus with the Pequod 's ; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards ; it is a sight that hardly anyone can behold without some sort of unwonted emotion . Some hours after midnight , the Typhoon abated so much , that through the strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb -- one engaged forward and the other aft -- the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and main-top-sails were cut adrift from the spars , and went eddying away to leeward , like the feathers of an albatross , which sometimes are cast to the winds when that storm-tossed bird is on the wing . The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed , and a storm-trysail was set further aft ; so that the ship soon went through the water with some precision again ; and the course -- for the present , East-south-east -- which he was to steer , if practicable , was once more given to the helmsman . For during the violence of the gale , he had only steered according to its vicissitudes . But as he was now bringing the ship as near her course as possible , watching the compass meanwhile , lo !