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Just on the very edge of the eddy there is one loud shout given by the bow paddle, and the canoe shoots full into the centre of the boiling flood, driven by the united strength of the entire crew the men work for their very lives, and the boat breasts across the river with her head turned full toward the falls; the waters foam and dash about her, the waves leap high over the gunwale, the Indians shout as they dip their paddles like lightning into the foam, and the stranger to such a scene holds his breath amidst this war of man against nature.
He went to her, patted the covered head, and tried with words choking in his throat to give hope. And he leaned with hands gripping the gunwale, with eyes wide open, ready for the unknown. The river made a quick turn and from round the bend rumbled a terrible uproar. The current racing that way was divided or uncertain, and it gave strange motion to the boat.
"How many?" he asked. "Like to herrings in a barrel. More than I can tell," the masthead man answered. Then Thorgils turned to us. "This is more than I can fully fathom," he said, leaning on the helm a little, so that the ship edged up a trifle closer to the wind steadily. "She has her weather gunwale packed with men, who are hiding under it armed men. On my word, it is well that Eric is with us."
Smithson sat in a bamboo chair beside his mistress, and looked ineffably happy when she handed him a cup of tea. Sky and sea were one exquisite azure the colours of the boats glancing in the sunshine as if they had been jewels; here an emerald rudder, there a gunwale painted with liquid rubies. White sails, white frocks, white ducks made vivid patches of light against the blue.
"Now if you will step into the boat, he will take you and Miss Grahame ashore, while I make all fast here. If you will take his hand, and be careful to step in the middle of the boat. In the MIDDLE of the boat, Miss Everton! Ah!" For Madge, with an airy leap, had alighted full on the gunwale.
The rowers knelt on the bottom of the boat, so that nothing but their heads projected above the gunwale, which set low in the water, and to which were tied branches of trees, concealing it so completely that at ten feet distance on any ordinarily clear night it would have been difficult to know that it was not a drifting limb.
It was a warm moist starless night, and there seemed no air to breathe in those narrow alleys. The gondolier was half asleep. Eustace called him as we jumped into his boat, and rang our soldi on the gunwale. Then he arose and turned the ferro round, and stood across towards the Salute.
"You will, eh?" retorted the youth, flashing fire from his fine eyes. And as he spoke, quick as thought, he leaped up on to the gunwale, and, without hesitation, dived into the great glassy rollers. But Charlie was quick too.
As their canoes cannot carry their animals over, they first drive the horse into the river up to his shoulders in the water, then launch the canoe after tying the animal's head to the top of the gunwale with the children and luggage on board. As the horse's feet are off the ground, he cannot injure the canoe.
As for Fedallah, who was seen pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and displayed his naked chest with the whole part of his body above the gunwale, clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery horizon; while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a fencer's, thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance any tendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar as in a thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him.