This ship and I
are two brave fellows!--Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch me,
spine-wise, on the sea,--for by live-oaks! my spine's a keel.
Ha, ha! we go the gait that leaves no dust behind!"
"There she blows--she blows!--she blows!--right ahead!"
was now the mast-head cry.
"Aye, aye!" cried Stubb, "I knew it--ye can't escape--blow on and split
your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow your trump--
blister your lungs!--Ahab will dam off your blood, as a miller shuts
his watergate upon the stream!"
And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew.
The frenzies of the chase had by this time worked them
bubblingly up, like old wine worked anew. Whatever pale
fears and forebodings some of them might have felt before;
these were not only now kept out of sight through the growing
awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed,
as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison.
The hand of Fate had snatched all their souls; and by the stirring
perils of the previous day; the rack of the past night's suspense;
the fixed, unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild
craft went plunging towards its flying mark; by all these things,
their hearts were bowled along.
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