THE WHITE WHALE 
203 
languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his hatband, 
where he always wore it aslant like a feather. He ldaded it, and 
rammed home the loading with his thumb-end; hut hardly had he 
ignited his match across the rough sandpaper of his hand, when Tash- 
tego, his harpooneer, whose eyes had been setting to windward like two 
fixed stars, suddenly dropped like light from his erect attitude to his 
seat, crying out in a quick frenzy of hurry, “Down, down all, and give 
way ! — there they are !” 
To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been 
visible at that moment ; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish white 
water, and thin scattered puffs of vapour hovering over it, and suffus- 
ingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from white rolling 
billows. The air around suddenly vibrated — and tingled, as it 
were — like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this 
atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of 
water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the 
other indications, the puffs of vapour they spouted seemed their forerun- 
ning couriers and detached flying outriders. 
All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of troubled 
water and air. But it b’ade fair to outstrip them; it flew on and on, 
as a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream from the 
hills. 
“Pull, pull, my good boys,” said Starbuck, in the lowest possible but 
intensest concentrated whisper to his men ; while the sharp fixed glance 
from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow, almost seemed as two 
visible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses. He did not say 
much to his crew, though, nor did his crew say anything to him ; only the 
silence of the boat was at intervals startlingly pierced by one of his 
peculiar whispers, now harsh with command, now soft with entreaty. 
How different the loud little King-Post. “Sing out and say some- 
thing, my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts ! Beach me, beach 
me on their black backs, boys; only do that for me, and I’ll sign 
over to you my Martha’s Vineyard plantation, boys; including wife, 
and children, boys. Lay me on — lay me on! 0 Lord, Lord! but 
I shall go stark, staring mad! See! see that white water!” And 
so shouting, he pulled his hat from his head, and stamped up and 
down on it ; then picking it up, flirted it far off upon the sea ; and finally 
