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"All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white whale.
Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"
- holding up a broad bright coin to the sun-
"it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D'ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me you top-maul."
While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking,
was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket,
as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself,
producing a sound so strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed
the mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality in him.
Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast
with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the other,
and with a high raised voice exclaiming:
"Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow
and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale,
with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke- look ye,
whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!"