THE WHITE WHALE 405 
not know ; but in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth, caught there 
somehow; but we didn’t know it then; so that when we afterwards 
pulled on the line, bounce we came plump on to his hump ! instead of 
the other whale’s; that went off to windward, all fluking. Seeing how 
matters stood, and what a noble great whale it was — the noblest and 
biggest I ever saw, sir, in my life — I resolved to capture him, spite of 
the boiling rage he seemed to be in. And thinking the haphazard line 
would get loose, or the tooth it was tangled to might draw (for I 
have a devil of a boat’s crew for a pull on a whale-line) ; seeing all this, 
I say, I jumped into my first mate’s boat — Mr. Mounttop’s here (by 
the way, captain — Mounttop; Mounttop — the captain; — as I was say- 
ing, I jumped into Mounttop’s boat, which, d’ye see, was gunwale and 
gunwale with mine then; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old 
great-grandfather have it. But, Lord look you,- sir — hearts and souls 
alive, man — the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat — both 
eyes out — all befogged and bedeadened with black foam — the whale’s 
tail looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air, like a 
marble steeple. No use sterning all, then; but as I was groping at 
midday, with a blinding sun,, all crown-jewels ; as I was groping, I 
say, after the second iron to toss it overboard — down comes the tail 
like a Lima Tower, cutting my boat in two, leaving each half in 
splinters; and, flukes first, the white hump backed through the wreck, 
as though it was all chips. We all struck out. To escape his terrible 
Sailings, I seized hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a 
moment clung to that like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed 
me off, and at the same instant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, 
went down like a flash ; and the barb of that cursed second iron towing 
along near me caught me here” (clapping his hand just below his 
shoulder) ; “yes, caught me just here, I say, and bore me down to 
Hell’s flames, I was thinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the 
good God, the barb ripped its way along the flesh — clear along the 
whole length of my arm — came out nigh my wrist, and up I floated ; — 
and that gentleman there will tell you the rest (by the way, captain — 
Dr. Bunger, ship’s surgeon: Bunger, my lad — the captain). Now, 
Bunger, boy, spin your part of the yarn.” 
The professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out ? had been 
