Moby Dick

to heave and swell; the submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries vanished;
in more and more contracting orbits the whales in the more central circles
began to swim in thickening clusters.  Yes, the long calm was departing.
A low advancing hum was soon heard; and then like to the tumultuous
masses of block-ice when the great river Hudson breaks up in Spring,
the entire host of whales came tumbling upon their inner centre,
as if to pile themselves up in one common mountain.  Instantly Starbuck
and Queequeg changed places; Starbuck taking the stern.

"Oars!  Oars!" he intensely whispered, seizing the helm--"gripe
your oars, and clutch your souls, now!  My God, men, stand by!
Shove him off, you Queequeg--the whale there!--prick him!--hit him!
Stand up--stand up, and stay so!  Spring men--pull, men; never mind
their backs--scrape them!--scrape away!"

The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks,
leaving a narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths.
But by desperate endeavor we at last shot into a temporary opening;
then giving way rapidly, and at the same time earnestly watching
for another outlet.  After many similar hair-breadth escapes, we at
last swiftly glided into what had just been one of the outer circles,
but now crossed by random whales, all violently making for one centre.
This lucky salvation was cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg's
hat, who, while standing in the bows to prick the fugitive whales,
had his hat taken clean from his head by the air-eddy made by the sudden
tossing of a pair of broad flukes close by.

Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was,
it soon resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement;
for having clumped together at last in one dense body,
they then renewed their onward flight with augmented fleetness.
Further pursuit was useless; but the boats still lingered in their
wake to pick up what drugged whales might be dropped astern,
and likewise to secure one which Flask had killed and waited.
The waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which are carried
by every boat; and which, when additional game is at hand,
are inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale,
both to mark its place on the sea, and also as token of
prior possession, should the boats of any other ship draw near.

The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that
sagacious saying in the Fishery,--the more whales the less fish.
Of all the drugged whales only one was captured.
The rest contrived to escape for the time, but only to be taken,
as will hereafter be seen, by some other craft than the Pequod.




CHAPTER 88

Schools and Schoolmasters


The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd
of Sperm Whales, and there was also then given the probable
cause inducing those vast aggregations.

Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as must
have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are
occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals each.
Such bands are known as schools.  They generally are of two sorts;
those composed almost entirely of females, and those mustering none
but young vigorous males, or bulls as they are familiarly designated.

In cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you invariably see
a male of full grown magnitude, but not old; who, upon any alarm,
evinces his gallantry by falling in the rear and covering the flight
of his ladies.  In truth, this gentleman is a luxurious Ottoman,
swimming about over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all
the solaces and endearments of the harem.  The contrast between this
Ottoman and his concubines is striking; because, while he is always
of the largest leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth,
are not more than one-third of the bulk of an average-sized male.
They are comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half
a dozen yards round the waist.  Nevertheless, it cannot be denied,
that upon the whole they are hereditarily entitled to en bon point.

It is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their
indolent ramblings.  Like fashionables, they are for ever
on the move in leisurely search of variety.  You meet them
on the Line in time for the full flower of the Equatorial
feeding season, having just returned, perhaps, from spending
the summer in the Northern seas, and so cheating summer of all
unpleasant weariness and warmth.  By the time they have lounged
up and down the promenade of the Equator awhile, they start
for the Oriental waters in anticipation of the cool season there,
and so evade the other excessive temperature of the year.

When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange
suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his
interesting family.  Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan coming
that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the ladies,
with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases him away!
High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him
are to be permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss;
though do what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious
Lothario out of his bed; for alas! all fish bed in common.
As ashore, the ladies often cause the most terrible duels among
their rival admirers; just so with the whales, who sometimes come