"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. the three mates quailed before his strong, sustained, and mystic aspect. stubb and flask looked sideways from him; the honest eye of starbuck fell downright.