330 
MOBY DICK; OR 
a harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial 
system; and when this is heightened by the extraordinary pressure 
of water at a great distance below the surface, his life may be said 
to pour from him in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity 
of blood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, 
that he will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period ; 
even as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the well- 
springs of far-off and undiscernible hills. Even now, when the 
boats pulled upon this whale, and perilously drew over his swaying 
flukes,, and the lances were darted into him, they were followed by 
steady jets from the newly made wounds, which kept continually 
playing, while the natural spout-hole in his head was only at intervals, 
however rapid, sending its affrightened moisture into the air. From 
this last vent no blood yet came, because no vital part of him had 
thus far been struck. His life, as they significantly call it, was un- 
touched. 
As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper 
part of his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was 
plainly revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes 
had been, were beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the 
knot-holes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points 
which the whale’s eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, 
horribly pitiable to see. But pity there was none. For all his old 
age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and 
be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merry- 
makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that 
preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all. Still rolling in his 
blood, at last he partially disclosed a strangely discoloured bunch or 
protuberance, the size of a bushel, low down on the flank. 
“A nice spot,” cried Flask; “just let me prick him there once.” 
“Avast!” cried Starbuck; “there’s no need of that!” 
But humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the dart 
an ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into 
more than sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, 
with swift fury blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and 
their glorying crews all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask’s 
