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- 17016
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-23T15:41:06.396Z
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- 16950
- text
- “And he took that arm off, did he?” asked Ahab, now sliding down from
the capstan, and resting on the Englishman’s shoulder, as he did so.
“Aye, he was the cause of it, at least; and that leg, too?”
“Spin me the yarn,” said Ahab; “how was it?”
“It was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the Line,”
began the Englishman. “I was ignorant of the White Whale at that time.
Well, one day we lowered for a pod of four or five whales, and my boat
fastened to one of them; a regular circus horse he was, too, that went
milling and milling round so, that my boat’s crew could only trim dish,
by sitting all their sterns on the outer gunwale. Presently up breaches
from the bottom of the sea a bouncing great whale, with a milky-white
head and hump, all crows’ feet and wrinkles.”
“It was he, it was he!” cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his suspended
breath.
“And harpoons sticking in near his starboard fin.”
“Aye, aye—they were mine—_my_ irons,” cried Ahab, exultingly—“but on!”
“Give me a chance, then,” said the Englishman, good-humoredly. “Well,
this old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump, runs all
afoam into the pod, and goes to snapping furiously at my fast-line!
“Aye, I see!—wanted to part it; free the fast-fish—an old trick—I know
him.”
“How it was exactly,” continued the one-armed commander, “I do not
know; but in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth, caught there
somehow; but we didn’t know it then; so that when we afterwards pulled
on the line, bounce we came plump on to his hump! instead of the other
whale’s; that went off to windward, all fluking. Seeing how matters
stood, and what a noble great whale it was—the noblest and biggest I
ever saw, sir, in my life—I resolved to capture him, spite of the
boiling rage he seemed to be in. And thinking the hap-hazard line would
get loose, or the tooth it was tangled to might draw (for I have a
devil of a boat’s crew for a pull on a whale-line); seeing all this, I
say, I jumped into my first mate’s boat—Mr. Mounttop’s here (by the
way, Captain—Mounttop; Mounttop—the captain);—as I was saying, I jumped
into Mounttop’s boat, which, d’ye see, was gunwale and gunwale with
mine, then; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old
great-grandfather have it. But, Lord, look you, sir—hearts and souls
alive, man—the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat—both eyes
out—all befogged and bedeadened with black foam—the whale’s tail
looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air, like a marble
steeple. No use sterning all, then; but as I was groping at midday,
with a blinding sun, all crown-jewels; as I was groping, I say, after
the second iron, to toss it overboard—down comes the tail like a Lima
tower, cutting my boat in two, leaving each half in splinters; and,
flukes first, the white hump backed through the wreck, as though it was
all chips. We all struck out. To escape his terrible flailings, I
seized hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung
to that like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off, and at
the same instant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, went down
like a flash; and the barb of that cursed second iron towing along near
me caught me here” (clapping his hand just below his shoulder); “yes,
caught me just here, I say, and bore me down to Hell’s flames, I was
thinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the barb
ript its way along the flesh—clear along the whole length of my
arm—came out nigh my wrist, and up I floated;—and that gentleman there
will tell you the rest (by the way, captain—Dr. Bunger, ship’s surgeon:
Bunger, my lad,—the captain). Now, Bunger boy, spin your part of the
yarn.”
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