264 
MOBY DICK; OR 
to the foam; and the tall form of Tashtego at the steering-oar crouching 
almost double, in order to bring down his centre of gravity. Whole 
Atlantics and Pacifies seemed passed as they shot on their way, till 
at length the whale somewhat slackened his flight. 
“Haul in — haul in!” cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing 
round towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to 
him, while yet the boat was. being towed on. Soon ranging up by 
his flank, Stubb, firmly planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted 
dart after dart into the flying fish; at the word of command, the boat 
alternately sterning out of the way of the whale’s horrible wallow, 
and then ranging up for another fling. 
The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks 
down a hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, 
which bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The 
slanting sun playing upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its 
reflection into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like red 
men. And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonisingly 
shot from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff 
from the mouth of the excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling 
in upon his crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straight- 
ened it again and again by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, 
then again and again sent it into the whale. 
“Pull up — pull up!” he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning 
whale relaxed in his wrath. “Pull up ! — close to !” and the boat ranged 
along the fish’s flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly 
churned his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully 
churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some 
gold watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was 
fearful of breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he 
sought was the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, 
starting from this trance into that unspeakable thing called his “flurry,” 
the monster horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself 
in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft in- 
stantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from 
that frenzied twilight into the clear air of the day. 
Ancj. now abating in his flurry, the whale once mofe rolled opt 
