Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, Starbuck!
Moby-Dick, Chapter 135: The Chase – Third Day
Paper cups from Corner Coffee in hand, charts and lines and sextants under lubbers’ arms, we bid solemn farewell to the baritone harbourmaster. Like swans to the sea, we are. New ports await us! We clank down the gangplank and are hallooed by our friend of the morning, old Captain Cat, there in his muffled midden, under broad frayed hat.
We set bold course for the Nash Passage and Cardiff Bay, six hours beyond. But forty minutes later, we can still see the car. Our wake bubbles greenly. The motor wheezes. We are not going to make it. Jibing at cruel fate, we haul round and head back. In the churning waters of the harbour gates, under holidaying ice-cream eyes, the motor dies.
All hands to action! Pull! Rrrack-a-dacka-dack. Again! A lifetime in two heartbeats. Fend off, there! A bump. A pitch, and the motor roars, to cheers from the crowd. Heedless, we pinball into the quay amid blue smoke, and tie up with grateful hands. Above, a heart-of-oak voice shivers our very timbers. “Back again are we, boys?”
