Captain Ahab is a fictional character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), the monomaniacal captain of the whaling ship Pequod. On a previous voyage, the white whale Moby Dick bit off Ahab's leg, leaving him with a prosthesis made out of whalebone. Instead of leading the Pequod on a whaling voyage for profit, Ahab seeks revenge on the whale and casts his spell over the crew-members to enlist them in his fanatical mission. When Moby Dick is finally sighted and hunted down, Ahab's hate robs him of all caution and denies him revenge. Moby Dick drags Ahab to the bottom of the sea.