But this critical act is not always unattended with the saddest
and most fatal casualties.
Furthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown
overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror,
skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines,
or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions.
Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale
is fairly captured and a corpse.
Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging
one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing
to these qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring
accidents of such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second
irons may be simultaneously dangling about him. For, of course,
each boat is supplied with several harpoons to bend on to the line
should the first one be ineffectually darted without recovery.
All these particulars are faithfully narrated here, as they will not
fail to elucidate several most important however intricate passages,
in scenes hereafter to be painted.
CHAPTER 64
Stubb's Supper
Stubb's whale had been killed some distance from the ship.
It was a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced
the slow business of towing the trophy to the Pequod.
Pages:
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481