512 
MOBY DICK; OR 
harpoons and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came 
flashing and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab’s boat. 
Only one thing could be done. Seizing the boat-knife, he critically 
reached within — through — and then, without — the rays of steel ; 
dragged in the line beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then, 
twice sundering the rope near the chocks — dropped the intercepted 
fagot of steel into the sea; and was all fast again. That instant, the 
White Whale made a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the 
other lines; by so doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved boats 
of Stuhb and Flask towards his flukes; dashed them together like two 
rolling husks on a surf-beaten beach, and then, diving down into the 
sea, disappeared in a coiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, 
the odorous cedar chips of the wrecks danced round and round, like 
the grated nutmeg in a swiftly stirred bowl of punch. 
While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out 
after the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture, while 
aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial, twitching 
his legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks; and Stubb was 
lustily singing out for some one to ladle him up; and while the old 
man’s line — now parting — admitted of his pulling into the creamy 
pool to rescue whom he could; — in that wild simultaneousness of a 
thousand concreted perils, — Ahab’s yet unstricken boat seemed drawn 
up towards Heaven by invisible wires, — as, arrow-like, shooting per- 
pendicularly from the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead 
against its bottom, and sent it, turning over and over, into the 
air ; till it fell again — gunwale downwards — and Ahab and 
his men struggled out from under it, like seals from a seaside 
cave. 
The first uprising momentum of the whale — modifying its direction 
as he struck the surface — involuntarily launched him along it, to a 
little distance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and 
with his back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his 
flukes from side to side ; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least 
chip or crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, 
and came sideways, smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his 
work for that time was done, he pushed his plaited forehead through 
