Flask, for an oarsman to break his own back pulling himself
back-foremost into death's jaws?"
"Can't you twist that smaller?" said Flask. "Yes, that's the law.
I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a whale
face foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint
for squint, mind that!"
Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate
statement of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls
and capsizings in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep,
were matters of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that
at the superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I
must resign my life into the hands of him who steered the boat--
oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment is in his impetuousness
upon the point of scuttling the craft with his own frantic stampings;
considering that the particular disaster to our own particular boat
was chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck's driving on to his whale
almost in the teeth of a squall, and considering that Starbuck,
notwithstanding, was famous for his great heedfulness in the fishery;
considering that I belonged to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck's boat;
and finally considering in what a devil's chase I was implicated,
touching the White Whale: taking all things together, I say,
I thought I might as well go below and make a rough draft of my will.
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