Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most South-Sea-men's cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck, exclaimed: "There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod.—On deck!"
As the king declares in Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris" (1831):
"The day must surely come when in France there will be only one king, one lord, one judge, one headsman, just as in paradise there is only one God!"
