- end_line
- 14063
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-23T15:41:04.750Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 14001
- text
- a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the
mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod’s fish-spears!
In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats
sent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad
enough to shade half Xerxes’ army. Who can tell how appalling to the
wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head!
“Stand by, men; he stirs,” cried Starbuck, as the three lines suddenly
vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by
magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every
oarsman felt them in his seat. The next moment, relieved in great part
from the downward strain at the bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce
upwards, as a small icefield will, when a dense herd of white bears are
scared from it into the sea.
“Haul in! Haul in!” cried Starbuck again; “he’s rising.”
The lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand’s breadth
could have been gained, were now in long quick coils flung back all
dripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke water within two
ship’s lengths of the hunters.
His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In most land
animals there are certain valves or flood-gates in many of their veins,
whereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly
shut off in certain directions. Not so with the whale; one of whose
peculiarities it is to have an entire non-valvular structure of the
blood-vessels, so that when pierced even by so small a point as a
harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial
system; and when this is heightened by the extraordinary pressure of
water at a great distance below the surface, his life may be said to
pour from him in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of
blood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, that
he will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period; even
as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the well-springs
of far-off and undiscernible hills. Even now, when the boats pulled
upon this whale, and perilously drew over his swaying flukes, and the
lances were darted into him, they were followed by steady jets from the
new made wound, which kept continually playing, while the natural
spout-hole in his head was only at intervals, however rapid, sending
its affrighted moisture into the air. From this last vent no blood yet
came, because no vital part of him had thus far been struck. His life,
as they significantly call it, was untouched.
As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of
his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly
revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were
beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the
noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale’s eyes
had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see.
But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his
blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light
the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate
the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to
all. Still rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a
strangely discoloured bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low
down on the flank.
“A nice spot,” cried Flask; “just let me prick him there once.”
“Avast!” cried Starbuck, “there’s no need of that!”
- title
- Chunk 14