THE WHITE WHALE 505 
time, lying all crushed in the bottom of Stubb’s boat, like one trodden 
under foot of herds of elephants. F ar inland, nameless wails came from 
him, as desolate sounds from out ravines. 
But this intensity of his physical prostration did hut so much the 
more abbreviate it. In an instant’s compass, great hearts sometimes 
condense to one deep pang, the sum-total of those shallow pains kindly 
diffused through feebler men’s whole lives. And so, such hearts, 
though summary in each one suffering; still, if the gods decree it, in 
their lifetime aggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of instan- 
taneous intensities; for even in their pointless centres, those noble 
natures contain the entire circumferences of inferior souls. 
“The harpoon,” said Ahab,. half-way rising, and draggingly lean- 
ing on one bended arm — “is it safe ?” 
“ A y e > s i r ? ^ or it was not darted; this is it,” said Stubb, showing it. 
“Lay it before me ; — any missing men ?” 
“One, two, three, four, five ; — there were five oars, sir, and here are 
five men.” 
“That’s good. — Help me, man ; I wish to stand. So, so, I see him ! 
there ! there ! going to leeward still ; what a leaping spout !— Hands off 
from me! The eternal sap runs in Ahab’s bones again! Set the 
sail ; out oars ; the helm !” 
It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked 
up by another boat, help to work that second boat; and the chase is 
thus continued with what is called double-banked oars. It was thus 
now. But the added power of the boat did not equal the added power 
of the whale, for he seemed to have treble-banked his every fin ; swim- 
ming with a velocity which plainly showed, that if now, under these cir- 
cumstances, pushed on, the chase would prove an indefinitely pro- 
longed, if not a hopeless one; nor could any crew endure for so long 
a period, such an unintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a thing 
barely tolerable only in some one brief vicissitude. The ship itself, 
then, as it sometimes happens, offered the most promising intermedi- 
ate means of overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made 
for her, and were soon swayed up to their cranes — the two parts of the 
wrecked boat having been previously secured by her — and then hoist- 
ing everything to her side, and stacking her canvas high up, and side- 
