But in the foamy confusion of their mixed and struggling hosts,
the marksmen could not always hit their mark; and this brought
about new revelations of the incredible ferocity of the foe.
They viciously snapped, not only at each other's disembowelments,
but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own;
till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by
the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound.
Nor was this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses
and ghosts of these creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic
vitality seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones,
after what might be called the individual life had departed.
Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin,
one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off,
when he tried to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.
*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel;
is about the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general shape,
corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its
sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower
than the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible;
and when being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor.
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