Moby Dick

the first assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now
coming for the three crews.  Ahab's boat was central; and cheering
his men, he told them he would take the whale head-and-head,--
that is, pull straight up to his forehead,--a not uncommon thing;
for when within a certain limit, such a course excludes
the coming onset from the whale's sidelong vision.
But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all
three boats were plain as the ship's three masts to his eye;
the White Whale churning himself into furious speed, almost in
an instant as it were, rushing among the boats with open jaws,
and a lashing tail, offered appalling battle on every side;
and heedless of the irons darted at him from every boat,
seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank
of which those boats were made.  But skilfully manoeuvred,
incessantly wheeling like trained chargers in the field;
the boats for a while eluded him; though, at times, but by a
plank's breadth; while all the time, Ahab's unearthly slogan
tore every other cry but his to shreds.

But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so
crossed and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack
of the three lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened,
and, of themselves, warped the devoted boats towards the planted
irons in him; though now for a moment the whale drew aside
a little, as if to rally for a more tremendous charge.
Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out more line;
and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it again--
hoping that way to disencumber it of some snarls--when lo!--
a sight more savage than the embattled teeth of sharks!

Caught and twisted--corkscrewed in the mazes of the line,
loose harpoons and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points,
came flashing and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab's boat.
Only one thing could be done.  Seizing the boat-knife, he critically
reached within--through--and then, without--the rays of steel;
dragged in the line beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman,
and then, twice sundering the rope near the chocks--dropped the
intercepted fagot of steel into the sea; and was all fast again.
That instant, the White Whale made a sudden rush among the remaining
tangles of the other lines; by so doing, irresistibly dragged
the more involved boats of Stubb and Flask towards his flukes;
dashed them together like two rolling husks on a surf-beaten beach,
and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in a boiling maelstrom,
in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of the wrecks danced
round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly stirred
bowl of punch.

While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out
after the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture,
while aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial,
twitching his legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks;
and Stubb was lustily singing out for some one to ladle him up;
and while the old man's line--now parting--admitted of his
pulling into the creamy pool to rescue whom he could;--
in that wild simultaneousness of a thousand concreted perils,--
Ahab's yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards Heaven by
invisible wires,--as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly from the sea,
the White Whale dashed his broad forehead against its bottom,
and sent it turning over and over, into the air; till it fell again--
gunwale downwards--and Ahab and his men struggled out from under it,
like seals from a sea-side cave.

The first uprising momentum of the whale--modifying its direction
as he struck the surface--involuntarily launched him along it,
to a little distance from the centre of the destruction he had made;
and with his back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling
with his flukes from side to side; and whenever a stray oar,
bit of plank, the least chip or crumb of the boats touched his skin,
his tail swiftly drew back, and came sideways smiting the sea.
But soon, as if satisfied that his work for that time was done,
he pushed his pleated forehead through the ocean, and trailing
after him the intertangled lines, continued his leeward way
at a traveller's methodic pace.

As before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight,
again came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat,
picked up the floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else
could be caught at, and safely landed them on her decks.
Some sprained shoulders, wrists, and ankles; livid contusions;
wrenched harpoons and lances; inextricable intricacies of rope;
shattered oars and planks; all these were there; but no
fatal or even serious ill seemed to have befallen any one.
As with Fedallah the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly clinging
to his boat's broken half, which afforded a comparatively easy float;
nor did it so exhaust him as the previous day's mishap.

But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon him;
as instead of standing by himself he still half-hung upon the shoulder
of Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist him.
His ivory leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter.

"Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner
who he will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has."

"The ferrule has not stood, sir," said the carpenter, now coming up;
I put good work into that leg."

"But no bones broken, sir, I hope," said Stubb with true concern.

"Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb!--d'ye see it.--