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Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his spoutings out, unless it be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere descending for good? How obvious it is it, too, that this necessity for the whale's rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase. For not by hook or by net could this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing a thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight.
One thing surprised me much; the top of its head, which was rough and knotty like the bark of an old tree, was swarming with little crabs and barnacles, and other small creatures. The whale's head seemed to be their regular home! This fish was by no means one of the largest kind, but being the first I had seen, I fancied it must be the largest fish in the sea.
The men on board cheered, and their cheers seemed to quicken the action of the boatmen. The sturdy old captain watched their progress through his glass, every few minutes giving expression to his feelings in words of hope and encouragement. "An old coaster, that whale is thirty, yes, nearly forty barrels there. Got pluck, too, that whale has. Can always tell when a whale's got pluck.
Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took Stubb's long spade still remaining there after the whale's decapitation and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended mass, placed its other end crutchwise under one arm, and so stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.
The monster, unconscious of danger, was still above water. As the boat drew near, old Tom was standing up in the bow, harpoon in hand, ready to plunge it into the whale's side. Its flukes were just going up as, with unerring aim, he darted his weapon, which sunk deep into its side.
One thing surprised me much; the top of its head, which was rough and knotty like the bark of an old tree, was swarming with little crabs and barnacles, and other small creatures. The whale's head seemed to be their regular home! This fish was by no means one of the largest kind, but being the first I had seen, I fancied it must be the largest fish in the sea.
An instant more, and all four boats were diagonically in the whale's immediate wake, while stretching from them, on both sides, was the foaming swell that he made. It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was now going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual tormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of fright.
"Oh, Daddy!" she cried, "is there going to be another earthquake?" "Look there!" Drew said pointing upward. Over the summit of the whale's hump hung a balloon of smoke, or of steam, its underside of a lurid hue. "I say I've had enough for one day," declared the master of the Bertha Hamilton. "Let's get back to the schooner before anything else occurs. Maybe a night's sleep will put heart in us.
Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of the whale's eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of solid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating two lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly separate the impressions which each independent organ imparts.
The White Whale's at the bottom of it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped! All right! Give way, men! It ain't the White Whale to-day! Give way!"
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