522 MOBY DICK; OR 
his utmost velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight 
path in the sea. 
“Oh ! Ahab,” cried Starbuck, “not too late is it, even now, the third 
day to desist. See ! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that 
madly seekest him!” 
Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled 
to leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was slid- 
ing by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck’s face as 
he leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and 
follow him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards, 
he saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three 
mastheads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats 
which had just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in re- 
pairing them. One after the other, through the port-holes, as he sped, 
he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves 
on deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all of this ; 
as he heard the hammers in the broken boats; far other hammers 
seemed driving a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now mark- 
ing that the vane or flag was .gone from the main masthead, he shouted 
to Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for an- 
other flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast. 
Whether fagged by the three days’ running chase, and the resistance 
to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was 
some latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, the 
White Whale’s way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so 
rapidly nearing him once more; though indeed the whale’s last start 
had not been so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the 
waves the unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously 
stuck to the boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the 
blades became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, 
at almost every dip. 
“Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your 
oars. Pull on! ’tis the better rest, the shark’s jaw than the yielding 
water.” 
“But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!” 
“They will last long enough! pull on! — But who can tell” — he 
