“Did ye see anything looking like men going towards that ship a while ago?” Elijah has accosted our heroes once again, and, come to think of it, Ishmael has seen something like that on his way to Pequod at the start of this chapter.

Once again, Ishmael finds himself uneasy; once again, he simply decides not to be disturbed: “I beat the thing down.”

Meanwhile, Queeuqeg uses a sleeping sailor as a chair, demonstrating a custom of his island, and Ishmael learns that the mysterious Ahab came aboard the previous night and now remains ” invisibly enshrined within his cabin.”

Do you suppose that humbug Elijah does know a thing or two about what’s afoot aboard the Pequod?

“Going Aboard” is read by Kate Sparshatt, Executive Director of the Plymouth Arts Centre. Today’s reading is accompanied by a video entitled Lighthouse by Catherine Haines (the image above is a screenshot from the video). Visit it the site to watch it.

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[Cross-posted with Patell and Waterman’s History of New York]