I see: the ship! the ship!
Dash on, my men!
Will ye not save my ship?"
But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water.
Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego's mast-head hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster just as soon as he.
"The whale, the whale!
Up helm, up helm!
Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close!
Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman's fainting fit.
Up helm, I say—ye fools, the jaw! the jaw!
Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities?
Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work.
Steady! helmsman, steady.
Nay, nay!
Up helm again!
He turns to meet us!
Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart.
My God, stand by me now!"
"Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here.
I grin at thee, thou grinning whale!
Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb's own unwinking eye?
And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood!
I grin at thee, thou grinning whale!
Look ye, sun, moon, and stars!
I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost.
For all that, I would yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup!
Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but there'll be plenty of gulping soon!
Why fly ye not, O Ahab!
For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his drawers!
A most mouldy and over salted death, though;—cherries! cherries! cherries!
Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!"
"Cherries?
I only wish that we were where they grow.
Oh, Stubb, I hope my poor mother's drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will now come to her, for the voyage is up."
From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed.
Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled.
Some fell flat upon their faces.
Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks.
Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume.
"The ship!
The hearse!—the second hearse!" cried Ahab from the boat; "its wood could only be American!"
Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab's boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent.
"I turn my body from the sun.
What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer.
Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,—death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me?
Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains?
Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief.
Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death!
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.
Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! THUS, I give up the spear!"