"Such an added, gliding strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah now; such ceaseless shudderings shook him; that the men looked dubious at him; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen being’s body."
And now we focus on the Parsee (Fedallah - the man in black who was smuggled on board by Ahab and whose title implies he is an adherent of Zoroastrianism). Fedallah has a strange role on board the Pequod. [Let me make a quick side note and say that I could not help but think of the Parsee when Steve Bannon joined the Trump campaign. It seems there is always a dark force behind some men of power.] It is tempting to believe that Ahab is under the influence of the Parsee, but here Melville seems to imply by use of the shadow image that the Parsee could be another part of Ahab's own psyche. This is like the creature in Frankenstein or the dude in the Fight Club question - can we create pieces of ourselves that function in our place? Oh this novel gets interesting!!