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- sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time
striving to wrest it out of your clutch.
“Wet the line! wet the line!” cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him
seated by the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed sea-water into
it.* More turns were taken, so that the line began holding its place.
The boat now flew through the boiling water like a shark all fins.
Stubb and Tashtego here changed places—stem for stern—a staggering
business truly in that rocking commotion.
*Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be
stated, that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the
running line with water; in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or
bailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your hat, however, is the most
convenient.
From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part
of the boat, and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you
would have thought the craft had two keels—one cleaving the water, the
other the air—as the boat churned on through both opposing elements at
once. A continual cascade played at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy
in her wake; and, at the slightest motion from within, even but of a
little finger, the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic
gunwale into the sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and main
clinging to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the tall
form of Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost double, in order
to bring down his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics
seemed passed as they shot on their way, till at length the whale
somewhat slackened his flight.
“Haul in—haul in!” cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round
towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while
yet the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb,
firmly planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart
into the flying fish; at the word of command, the boat alternately
sterning out of the way of the whale’s horrible wallow, and then
ranging up for another fling.
The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down
a hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, which
bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The slanting sun
playing upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection
into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like red men.
And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot
from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the
mouth of the excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his
crooked lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again
and again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and
again sent it into the whale.
“Pull up—pull up!” he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning whale
relaxed in his wrath. “Pull up!—close to!” and the boat ranged along
the fish’s flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned
his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully
churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold
watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of
breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was
the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting
from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his “flurry,” the
monster horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in
impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft,
instantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from
that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the day.
And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into
view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting
his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last,
gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees
of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran
dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst!
“He’s dead, Mr. Stubb,” said Daggoo.
“Yes; both pipes smoked out!” and withdrawing his own from his mouth,
Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a moment, stood
thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made.
CHAPTER 62. The Dart.
A word concerning an incident in the last chapter.
According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boat pushes
off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as temporary
steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the foremost
oar, the one known as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needs a strong,
nervous arm to strike the first iron into the fish; for often, in what
is called a long dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the
distance of twenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and exhausting
the chase, the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile to the
uttermost; indeed, he is expected to set an example of superhuman
activity to the rest, not only by incredible rowing, but by repeated
loud and intrepid exclamations; and what it is to keep shouting at the
top of one’s compass, while all the other muscles are strained and half
started—what that is none know but those who have tried it. For one, I
cannot bawl very heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same
time. In this straining, bawling state, then, with his back to the
fish, all at once the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting
cry—“Stand up, and give it to him!” He now has to drop and secure his
oar, turn round on his centre half way, seize his harpoon from the
crotch, and with what little strength may remain, he essays to pitch it
somehow into the whale. No wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen
in a body, that out of fifty fair chances for a dart, not five are
successful; no wonder that so many hapless harpooneers are madly cursed
and disrated; no wonder that some of them actually burst their
blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that some sperm whalemen are
absent four years with four barrels; no wonder that to many ship
owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the harpooneer that
makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how can
you expect to find it there when most wanted!
Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical instant,
that is, when the whale starts to run, the boatheader and harpooneer
likewise start to running fore and aft, to the imminent jeopardy of
themselves and every one else. It is then they change places; and the
headsman, the chief officer of the little craft, takes his proper
station in the bows of the boat.
Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is both
foolish and unnecessary. The headsman should stay in the bows from
first to last; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and no
rowing whatever should be expected of him, except under circumstances
obvious to any fisherman. I know that this would sometimes involve a
slight loss of speed in the chase; but long experience in various
whalemen of more than one nation has convinced me that in the vast
majority of failures in the fishery, it has not by any means been so
much the speed of the whale as the before described exhaustion of the
harpooneer that has caused them.
To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this
world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out
of toil.
CHAPTER 63. The Crotch.
Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs.