Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers
handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads
of their yet suspended boats. If the wind only held,
little doubt had they, that chased through these Straits
of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental
seas to witness the capture of not a few of their number.
And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan,
Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming,
like the worshipped white-elephant in the coronation procession
of the Siamese! So with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we
sailed along, driving these leviathans before us; when, of a sudden,
the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly directing attention
to something in our wake.
Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear.
It seemed formed of detached white vapors, rising and falling something
like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so completely come
and go; for they constantly hovered, without finally disappearing.
Levelling his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved in his
pivot-hole, crying, "Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to wet
the sails;--Malays, sir, and after us!"
As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod
should fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics
were now in hot pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay.
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