Ahab's Adventure's In Wonderland; or The Rabbit

Chapter Sixty-One

With the aftermath of the storm still leaving the Queen and her consort in a heavy state of confusion, we were startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly--like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod's murdered Innocents--that one and all, we started from our reveries, and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixed by listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained within hearing. Some murmured it was mermaids, and shuddered; Yet the knave declared that the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly beheaded men in search of their bodies.

Ahab alone seemed unaware of the haunting song, and he remained motionless; but when Starbuck asked him what he thought of the wailings, Ahab hollowly laughed, and thus explained the wonder.

The general vicinity around the Queen's court was a garden that also happened to be the resort of great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the croquet grounds and kept company there, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail. But this only the more affected some of them, because most people cherish a very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human look of their round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from the water alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men.

This information did nothing to make us feel more at ease, as it dug up more questions than it buried. Most pressing of which, what were seals doing in the Queen's garden. Before a satisfactory answer could be found, however, the Chesire Cat reappeared directly before Ahab.

'What are you doing back here?' asked the captain, who obviously was out of sorts following the storm.

'The question, I think, is what are you still doing here,' and not even Ahab could argue with that question.

'Hast you seen the White Rabbit?'

'Aye, just a few moments prior. Have ye seen the White Rabbit?'

Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question.

'Of course not. Where was he?--not killed!--not killed!' cried Ahab, closely advancing. 'How was it?'

It was, according to the cat, somewhat late in the afternoon that the white hump and ears of Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out of the grass, not very far from the Queen's court. It was likely that he was still in the vicinity.

The story told, the cat immediately went on to reveal his object in manifesting himself to Ahab. He desired that Ahab to unite with his own in the search for his missing body. 'I fear it might lead to trouble.'

'My body, my own body is among them,' here explained the Chesire Cat to Ahab, who thus far had but icily received his petition.

'His body!' cried Starbuck, 'oh, it's his body he's lost! Ahab? We must save that body.'

'I will not go,' said the Cat, 'till you say yes to me. Do to me as you would have me do to you in the like case. For you too have a body, Captain Ahab--though you too are missing a leg. Yes, yes, you relent; I see it.'

'Avast,' cried Ahab--'no one move an inch;' then in a voice that prolongingly molded every word--'Chesire Cat, I will not do it. Even now I lose time, Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, Cat, and may I forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, stay with me. We continue our search for the White Rabbit.'

Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he went looking the direction he had been told was the last seen location of Moby Dick, leaving the strange Cat head transfixed at this unconditional and utter rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment, the Cat silently disappeared altogether.