the crew thought the ship would sink, the sea breaking over the ship. Yet instead of thinking of death, Captain Ahab and Peleg thought of how to save all hands, and how to rig temporary masts in order to get into the nearest port and make repairs. Before the ship sails from Nantucket, Ishmael encounters a man named Elijah who tells him about some of Ahab's past deeds. According to Elijah, Ahab once lay near death for three days and nights near Cape Horn, took part in a deadly battle against Spanish forces before an altar in Santa, and spat into its silver chalice. Ahab lost his leg during his most recent whaling voyage, leaving him with a grim disposition and a strong desire for revenge against Moby Dick. In addition to the prosthetic leg, Ahab bears a mark that runs down one side of his face and neck: “Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it... leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded.” –(Moby-Dick, p. 129.) The mark and its origins – whether a birthmark, the scar from a wound, or otherwise – are rarely mentioned or discussed. Ahab's leg includes a small flat patch that he uses as a slate for making navigational calculations. The deck planks of Pequod have been bored with shallow holes, the same diameter as the lower end, to allow him to steady himself against the motion of the ship. While at sea, he turns to the ship's carpenter and blacksmith to fashion a replacement leg and fittings after damaging the one he wears. Ahab is 58 years old at the time of Pequods last voyage. Peleg and Bildad pilot the ship out of the harbor, and Ahab first appears on deck when the ship is already at sea. Instead of embarking on a regular whaling voyage, Ahab declares he is out for revenge and nails a doubloon to the mast, as a reward for the crewmember who first sights Moby Dick. As the voyage proceeds, Ahab gradually abandons the physical comforts of his life, symbolized by such actions as