You must be referring to the bizarre religious rite Ahab performs in "The Quarter Deck" chapter to consecrate his crew and ship in the quest to destroy Moby Dick. At one point, Ahab orders his mates to present their lances:
“Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let me touch the axis." So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing,...
You must be referring to the bizarre religious rite Ahab performs in "The Quarter Deck" chapter to consecrate his crew and ship in the quest to destroy Moby Dick. At one point, Ahab orders his mates to present their lances:
“Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let me touch the axis." So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing, suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently from Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own magnetic life.”
After this, he has the mates serve as "cupbearers" to the harpooneers, filling the socket end of the harpoons with grog and drinking their allegiance to Ahab and his quest: “Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat's bow—Death to Moby Dick!”
Starbuck is shocked by this display of paganism. He alone seems able to question Ahab -- earlier in the chapter, he says to him -- “To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous” -- but to Ahab, the entire world is blasphemous. The parody of the sacraments he enacts in this chapter is an expression of his abiding contempt for that "unknown but still reasoning thing" that put Moby Dick on earth.
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