Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. "I grow blind;
hands! stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way.
Is't night?"
"The whale! The ship!" cried the cringing oarsmen.
"Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea that ere
it be for ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time
upon his mark! I see: the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men!
Will ye not save my ship?"
But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through
the sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends
of two planks burst through, and in an instant almost,
the temporarily disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves;
its half-wading, splashing crew, trying hard to stop the gap
and bale out the pouring water.
Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego's mast-head
hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag,
half-wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself
straight out from him, as his own forward-flowing heart;
while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the bowsprit beneath,
caught sight of the down-coming monster just as soon as he.
"The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers
of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must,
in a woman's fainting fit.
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