504 
MOBY DICK; OR 
Channel billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, tri- 
umphantly to overlap its summit with their scud. 
But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly 
round and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in 
his vengeful wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more 
deadly assault. The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden 
him, as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus’s 
elephants in the book of Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered 
in the foam of the whale’s insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to 
swim, — though he could still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a 
whirlpool as that; helpless Ahab’s head was seen, like a tossed bubble 
which the least chance shock might burst. From the boat’s frag- 
mentary stern, Fedallah incuriously and mildly eyed him; the cling- 
ing crew, at the other drifting end, could not succour him ; more than 
enough was it for them to look to themselves. For so revolvingly 
appalling was the White Whale’s aspect, and so planetarily swift the 
ever-contracting circles he made, that he seemed horizontally swooping 
upon them. And though the other boats, unharmed, still hovered hard 
by, still they dared not pull into the eddy to strike, lest that should 
be the signal for the instant destruction of the jeopardised castaways, 
Ahab and all; nor in that case could they themselves hope to escape. 
With straining eyes, then they remained on the outer edge of the dire- 
ful zone, whose centre had now become the old man’s head. 
Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the 
ship’s mastheads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon 
the scene ; and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her ; — 
“Sail on the” — but that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from 
Moby Dick, and whelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it 
again, and chancing to rise on a towering crest, he shouted, — “Sail on 
the whale ! — Drive him off !” 
The Pequod’s prows were pointed; and breaking up the charmed 
circle, she effectually parted the White Whale from his victim. As 
he sullenly swam off, the boats flew to the rescue. 
Dragged into Stubb’s boat with bloodshot, blinded eyes, the white 
brine caking in his wrinkles ; the long tension of Ahab’s bodily strength 
did crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body’s doom: for a 
