The Pequod Meets the Bachelor
And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab’s harpoon had been welded.
It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor , which had just wedged in her last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vaingloriously, sailing round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous to pointing her prow for home.