- char_end
- 852537
- char_start
- 844656
- chunk_index
- 119
- chunk_total
- 178
- estimated_tokens
- 1971
- source_file_key
- moby-dick
- text
- herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it would almost
seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and
covenant for mutual assistance and protection. To this aggregation of
the Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be imputed the
circumstance that even in the best cruising grounds, you may now
sometimes sail for weeks and months together, without being greeted by
a single spout; and then be suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems
thousands on thousands.
Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and
forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a
continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the
noon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right
Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the
cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of
the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually
rising and falling away to leeward.
Seen from the Pequod’s deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of
the sea, this host of vapory spouts, individually curling up into the
air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed
like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried
of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height.
As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains,
accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in
their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the
plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward
through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their
semicircle, and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.
Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers
handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their yet
suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that
chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy
into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their
number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby
Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped
white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese! So with
stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans
before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly
directing attention to something in our wake.
Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our
rear. It seemed formed of detached white vapors, rising and falling
something like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so
completely come and go; for they constantly hovered, without finally
disappearing. Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved
in his pivot-hole, crying, “Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to
wet the sails;—Malays, sir, and after us!”
As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should
fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in
hot pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay. But when the
swift Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how
very kind of these tawny philanthropists to assist in speeding her on
to her own chosen pursuit,—mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that
they were. As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in
his forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one
the bloodthirsty pirates chasing _him_; some such fancy as the above
seemed his. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery
defile in which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that
through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that
through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his
deadly end; and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates
and inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with
their curses;—when all these conceits had passed through his brain,
Ahab’s brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after
some stormy tide has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the
firm thing from its place.
But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and
when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the
Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra
side, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then, the
harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had been
gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so
victoriously gained upon the Malays. But still driving on in the wake
of the whales, at length they seemed abating their speed; gradually the
ship neared them; and the wind now dying away, word was passed to
spring to the boats. But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed
wonderful instinct of the Sperm Whale, become notified of the three
keels that were after them,—though as yet a mile in their rear,—than
they rallied again, and forming in close ranks and battalions, so that
their spouts all looked like flashing lines of stacked bayonets, moved
on with redoubled velocity.
Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash, and
after several hours’ pulling were almost disposed to renounce the
chase, when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating
token that they were now at last under the influence of that strange
perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive it
in the whale, they say he is gallied. The compact martial columns in
which they had been hitherto rapidly and steadily swimming, were now
broken up in one measureless rout; and like King Porus’ elephants in
the Indian battle with Alexander, they seemed going mad with
consternation. In all directions expanding in vast irregular circles,
and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by their short thick
spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic. This was
still more strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely
paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled
ships on the sea. Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple
sheep, pursued over the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not
possibly have evinced such excessive dismay. But this occasional
timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures. Though
banding together in tens of thousands, the lion-maned buffaloes of the
West have fled before a solitary horseman. Witness, too, all human
beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold of a theatre’s pit,
they will, at the slightest alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the
outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each
other to death. Best, therefore, withhold any amazement at the
strangely gallied whales before us, for there is no folly of the beasts
of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.
Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion,
yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor
retreated, but collectively remained in one place. As is customary in
those cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one lone
whale on the outskirts of the shoal. In about three minutes’ time,
Queequeg’s harpoon was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray
in our faces, and then running away with us like light, steered
straight for the heart of the herd. Though such a movement on the part
of the whale struck under such circumstances, is in no wise
unprecedented; and indeed is almost always more or less anticipated;
yet does it present one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the
fishery.