"There she blows!--there she blows!
A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!"
Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the three
look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold the famous
whale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now gained
his final perch, some feet above the other look-outs, Tashtego
standing just beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast,
so that the Indian's head was almost on a level with Ahab's heel.
From this height the whale was now seen some mile or so ahead,
at every roll of the sea revealing his high sparkling hump,
and regularly jetting his silent spout into the air.
To the credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they
had so long ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
"And did none of ye see it before?" cried Ahab, hailing the perched
men all around him.
"I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did,
and I cried out," said Tashtego.
"Not the same instant; not the same--no, the doubloon is mine,
Fate reserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could have
raised the White Whale first. There she blows! there she blows!--
there she blows!--there she blows! There again!--there again!"
he cried, in long-drawn, lingering, methodic tones, attuned to the gradual
prolongings of the whale's visible jets.
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