The glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored
marble tomb; and giving one sidelong sweep with his steering oar,
Ahab whirled the craft aside from this tremendous apparition.
Then, calling upon Fedallah to change places with him, went forward
to the bows, and seizing Perth's harpoon, commanded his crew
to grasp their oars and stand by to stern.
Now, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its axis,
its bow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale's head
while yet under water. But as if perceiving this stratagem,
Moby Dick, with that malicious intelligence ascribed to him,
sidelingly transplanted himself, as it were, in an instant,
shooting his pleated head lengthwise beneath the boat.
Through and through; through every plank and each rib,
it thrilled for an instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back,
in the manner of a biting shark slowly and feelingly taking
its bows full within his mouth, so that the long, narrow,
scrolled lower jaw curled high up into the open air, and one
of the teeth caught in a row-lock. The bluish pearl-white
of the inside of the jaw was within six inches of Ahab's head,
and reached higher than that. In this attitude the White Whale
now shook the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse.
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