MDMD Bongo & Black Pip.1

[Terrance]

                       FRENCH SAILOR
  Hist, boys! let's have a jig or two before we ride to anchor in
Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand by all
legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine!

                   PIP (Sulky and sleepy)
  Don't know where it is.

                       FRENCH SAILOR
  Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say;
merry's the word; hurrah! Damn me, won't you dance? Form, now,
Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves!
Legs! legs!

                       ICELAND SAILOR
  I don't like your floor, maty; it's too springy to my taste. I'm
used to ice-floors. I'm sorry to throw cold water on the subject;
but excuse me.

                       MALTESE SAILOR
  Me too; where's your girls? Who but a fool would take his left
hand by his right, and say to himself, how d'ye do? Partners! I must
have partners!

                       SICILIAN SAILOR
  Aye; girls and a green!- then I'll hop with ye; yea, turn
grasshopper!

                      LONG-ISLAND SAILOR
  Well, well, ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us. Hoe corn when you
may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here comes the music; now
for it!

AZORE SAILOR (Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the scuttle.)
  Here you are, Pip; and there's the windlass-bits; up you mount! Now,
boys!
  (The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go below; some sleep
or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a-plenty.)

                    AZORE SAILOR (Dancing)
  Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it,
bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers!

                             PIP
  Jinglers, you say?- there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so.

                          CHINA SAILOR
  Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of thyself.


                          FRENCH SAILOR
  Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it! Split
jibs! tear yourself!

                    TASHTEGO (Quietly smoking)
  That's a white man; he calls that fun: humph! I save my sweat.

                         OLD MANX SAILOR
  I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what they are
dancing over. I'll dance over your grave, I will- that's the bitterest
threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round corners. O
Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled crews!
Well, well; belike the whole world's a ball, as you scholars have
it; and so 'tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads,
you're young; I was once.

                       3D NANTUCKET SAILOR
  Spell oh!- whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in a
calm- give a whiff, Tash.
  (They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky
darkens- the wind rises.)

                          LASCAR SAILOR
  By Brahma! boys, it'll be douse sail soon. The sky-born, high-tide
Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva!

          MALTESE SAILOR (Reclining and shaking his cap)
  It's the waves- the snow's caps turn to jig it now. They'll shake
their tassels soon. Now would all the waves were women, then I'd go
drown, and chassee with them evermore! There's naught so sweet on
earth- heaven may not match it!- as those swift glances of warm,
wild bosoms in the dance, when the over-arboring arms hide such
ripe, bursting grapes.

                    SICILIAN SAILOR (Reclining)
  Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad- fleet interlacings of the limbs-
lithe swayings- coyings- flutterings! lip! heart! hip! all graze:
unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, else come satiety.
Eh, Pagan? (Nudging.)

                 TAHITAN SAILOR (Reclining on a mat)
  Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls!- the Heeva-Heeva! Ah! low
veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I still rest me on thy mat, but the soft
soil has slid! I saw thee woven in the wood, my mat! green the first
day I brought ye thence; now worn and wilted quite. Ah me!- not thou
nor I can bear the change! How then, if so be transplanted to yon sky?
Hear I the roaring streams from Pirohitee's peak of spears, when
they leap down the crags and drown the villages?- The blast, the
blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (Leaps to his feet.)

                        PORTUGUESE SAILOR
  How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand by for reefing,
hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell they'll go
lunging presently.

                          DANISH SAILOR
  Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest! Well
done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no more afraid
than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic with
storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes!

                       4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR
  He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab tell him he must
always kill a squall, something as they burst a waterspout with a
pistol- fire your ship right into it!

                          ENGLISH SAILOR
  Blood! but that old man's a grand old cove! We are the lads to
hunt him up his whale!

                             ALL
  Aye! aye!





"Oh! thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have
mercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men
that have no bowels to feel fear!"