500 
MOBY DICK; OR 
“I saw him almost the same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I 
cried out,” said Tashtego. 
“Hot the same instant; not the same — no, the doubloon is mine, 
Fate reserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could have 
raised the White Whale first. There she blows ! there she blows ! — there 
she blows! There again! — there again!” he cried, in long-drawn, 
lingering, methodic tones, attuned to the gradual prolongings of the 
whale’s visible jets. “He’s going to sound ! In stunsails ! Down top- 
gallant-sails ! Stand by three boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay 
on board, and keep the ship. Helm there ! Luff, luff a point ! So ; 
steady, man, steady! There go flukes! Ho, no; only black water! 
All ready the boats there ? Stand by, stand by ! Lower me, Mr. Star- 
buck; lower, lower, — quick, quicker!” and he slid through the air to 
the deck. 
“He is heading straight to leeward, sir,” cried Stubb ; “right away 
from us ; cannot have seen the ship yet.” 
“Be dumb, man ! Stand by the braces ! Hard down the helm ! — 
brace up ! Shiver her ! — shiver her ! So ; well that ! Boats, boats !” 
Soon all the boats but Starbuck’s were dropped ; all the boat-sails set 
— all the padciles plying ; with rippling swiftness, shooting to leeward ; 
and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, death-glimmer lit up Fedallah’s 
sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth. 
Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea ; 
but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean 
grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; 
seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breath- 
less hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his en- 
tire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an 
isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, 
greenish foam. He saw the vast involved wrinkles of the slightly pro- 
jecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged 
waters, went the glistening white shadows from his broad, milky fore- 
head, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade ; and behind, 
the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of 
his steady wake ; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by 
his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of 
