"There she blows!" Had the trump of judgment blown,
they could not have quivered more; yet still they felt no terror;
rather pleasure. For though it was a most unwonted hour,
yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously exciting,
that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering.
Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded
the t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread.
The best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every
mast-head manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind.
The strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze
filling the hollows of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck
to feel like air beneath the feet; while still she rushed along,
as if two antagonistic influences were struggling in her--one to mount
direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal.
And had you watched Ahab's face that night, you would have thought
that in him also two different things were warring. While his one live
leg made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb
sounded like a coffin-tap. On life and death this old man walked.
But though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from every eye,
like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no
more seen that night.
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