Meantime everything in the Pequod was aslant.
To cross to the other side of the deck was like walking up
the steep gabled roof of a house. The ship groaned and gasped.
Many of the ivory inlayings of her bulwarks and cabins were started
from their places, by the unnatural dislocation. In vain handspikes
and crows were brought to bear upon the immovable fluke-chains, to pry
them adrift from the timberheads; and so low had the whale now settled
that the submerged ends could not be at all approached, while every
moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed added to the sinking bulk,
and the ship seemed on the point of going over.
"Hold on, hold on, won't ye?" cried Stubb to the body,
"don't be in such a devil of a hurry to sink!
By thunder, men, we must do something or go for it.
No use prying there; avast, I say with your handspikes,
and run one of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut
the big chains."
"Knife? Aye, aye," cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter's
heavy hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron,
began slashing at the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes,
full of sparks, were given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest.
With a terrific snap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted,
the carcase sank.
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