--Where away?"
"Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her
breeze to us!
"Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come
along that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze!
O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your
linked analogies; not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter,
but has its cunning duplicate in mind."
CHAPTER 71
The Jeroboam's Story
Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster
than the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock.
By and by, through the glass the stranger's boats and manned
mast-heads proved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far
to windward, and shooting by, apparently making a passage
to some other ground, the Pequod could not hope to reach her.
So the signal was set to see what response would be made.
Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines,
the ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal;
all which signals being collected in a book with the names
of the respective vessels attached, every captain is provided
with it. Thereby, the whale commanders are enabled to recognise
each other upon the ocean, even at considerable distance,
and with no small facility.
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