THE WHITE WHALE 353 
Broad on both bows, at the distance of two or three miles, and form- 
ing a great semi-circle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a con- 
tinuous chain of whale- jets were up-playing and sparkling in the noon- 
day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Bight 
Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the cleft 
drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of the 
Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually 
rising and falling away to leeward. 
Seen from the Pequod’s deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill 
of the sea, this host of vapoury spouts, individually curling up into 
the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, 
showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, 
descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height. 
As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the moun- 
tains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage 
in their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the 
plain ; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward 
through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semi- 
circle, and swimming on in one solid but still crescentic centre. 
Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers 
handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their yet 
suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that 
chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only de- 
ploy in the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their 
number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, 
Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the 
worshipped white elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese ! 
So with stunsail piled on stunsail, we sailed along, driving these levia- 
thans before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, 
loudly directing attention to something in our wake. 
Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our 
rear. It seemed formed of detached white vapours, rising and falling 
something like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so com- 
pletely come and go; for they constantly hovered, without finally dis- 
appearing. Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved 
in his pivot-hole, crying, “Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to 
wet the sails ; — Malays, sir, and after us 1” 
