511 
THE WHITE WHALE 
hour and thy harpoon are at hand! — Down! down all of ye, but one 
man at the fore. The boats !— stand by !” 
Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men, like 
shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays and halyards ; 
while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly, was dropped from his 
perch. 
“Lower awa y,” he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat — a 
spare one, rigged the afternoon previous. “Mr. Starbuck, the ship 
is thine keep away from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all !” 
As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first 
assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming for the 
three crews. Ahab’s boat was central; and cheering his men, he told 
them he would take the whale head-and-head, — that is, pull straight 
up to his forehead, — a not uncommon thing; for when within a certain 
limit, such a course excludes the coming onset from the whale’s side- 
long vision. But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all 
three boats were plain as the ship’s three masts to his eye; the White 
Whale churning himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it 
were, rushing among the boats with open jaws, and lashing tail, offered 
appalling battle on every side ; and heedless of the irons darted at him 
from every boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank 
of which those boats were made. But skillfully manoeuvered, inces- 
santly wheeling like trained chargers in the field ; the boats for a while 
eluded him; though, at times, but by a plank’s breadth; while all 
the time, Ahab’s unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to 
shreds. 
But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so crossed 
and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack of the three 
lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and, of themselves, 
warped the devoted boats towards the planted irons in him ; though now 
for a moment the whale drew aside a little, as if to rally for a more 
tremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out 
more line : and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it again — 
hoping that way to disencumber it of some snarls — when lo ! — a sight 
more savage than the embattled teeth of sharks! 
Caught and twisted — corkscrewed in the mazes of the line — loose 
