265 
THE WHITE WHALE 
into view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and con- 
tracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonised respirations. 
At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the 
purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back 
again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His 
heart had burst! 
“He’s dead, Mr. Stubb,” said Daggoo. 
“Yes; both pipes smoked out!” and withdrawing his own from 
his mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, 
for a moment, stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made. 
CHAPTER LXI 
THE DART 
A word concerning an incident in the last chapter. 
According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale boat 
pushes off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as tem- 
porary steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the 
foremost oar, the one known as the harpooneer-oar. How it needs a 
strong, nervous arm to strike the first iron into the fish; for often, in 
what is called a long dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the 
distance of twenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and ex- 
hausted the chase, the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar mean- 
while to the uttermost; indeed, he is expected to set an example of 
superhuman activity to the rest, not only by incredible rowing, but 
by repeated loud and intrepid exclamations; and what it is to -keep 
shouting at the top of one’s compass, while all the other muscles are 
strained and hall started — what that is none know but those who have 
tried it. For one, I cannot bawl very heartily and work very recklessly 
at one and the same time. In this straining, bawling state, then, with 
his back to the fish, all at once the exhausted harpooneer hears the ex- 
cited cry — “Stand up, and give it to him !” He now has to drop and 
secure his oar, turn round on his centre half-way, seize his harpoon 
from the crotch, and with what little strength may remain, he essays 
to pitch it somehow into the whale. Ho wonder, taking the whole fleet 
