At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the first
to perceive the whale's intent, by the crafty upraising of his head,
a movement that loosed his hold for the time; at that moment his
hand had made one final effort to push the boat out of the bite.
But only slipping further into the whale's mouth, and tilting over
sideways as it slipped, the boat had shaken off his hold on the jaw;
spilled him out of it, as he leaned to the push; and so he fell
flat-faced upon the sea.
Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a
little distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up
and down in the billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his
whole spindled body; so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose--
some twenty or more feet out of the water--the now rising swells,
with all their confluent waves, dazzlingly broke against it;
vindictively tossing their shivered spray still higher into
the air.* So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel billows only
recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to overleap
its summit with their scud.
*This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its designation
(pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down
poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling,
previously described.
Pages:
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879