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He thought that by using the utmost force of the Jules Verne, whose engines were very powerful, in pushing the Ark, combined with the backing of her own engines, she might be got off. "Hurry up, then, and get to work," cried Captain Arms. "This flood is on the ebb, and a few hours more will find us stuck here like a ray with his saw in a whale's back."
But not so did it seem to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and currents; and thereby calculating the driftings of the sperm whale's food; and, also calling to mind the regular, ascertained seasons for hunting him in particular latitudes; could arrive at reasonable surmises, almost approaching to certainties, concerning the timeliest day to be upon this or that ground in search of his prey.
Masters of Sea and Land, Commander of the Stars, Orderers of the Waxing and Waning of the Moon, Ten Thousand Ocean Tides, Man of Fair Countenance, Caller to Myriads, Climber to the Ninth Heaven, Man of Understanding, Player of the Game of Life, Doer of Deeds of Daring, Ten Thousand Cocoanut Leaves, The Enclosure of the Whale's Tooth, Man of the Forbidden Place, The Whole Blue Sky, Player of the War Drum, The Long Stayer; these were the names that called down the centuries, bringing back to Titihuti and to us who sat at her feet in the glow of the torches the fame and glory of her people through ages past.
He went nearer and examined one of the stones; then he scraped away the sand from its base, and found it was not shaped like a stone, but more like a whale's rib. He became excited; went on his knees, and tore the sand up with his hands. Then he rose up agitated, and traced the outline again. "Great Heaven!" said he, "why, it is a ship." "A ship!"
But of all this departed splendour but little could be seen, since the place was lit only by a single lamp of whale's oil and a fire that burned upon the wide stone hearth, a great fire, since Father Arnold, who had spent many years of his life in the East, loved warmth. "Now, Hugh de Cressi," he said, "what have you done?" "Slain my cousin, John of Clavering, Father, and perhaps another man."
Startin' on one o' them long legs o' his'n now," and the captain's eye rested on the sloop beating up Fisher's Island way. "And, Billy, 'fore ye go ashore, jump into the yawl and take a look at that snatch block on the spar buoy, that clam digger may want it 'fore night." This spar buoy lay a few hundred yards off the Whale's Snout.
If a south wind blows they know that it is going to be hot. But they do not understand the signs of a new world uprising. If they cannot understand the spiritual tokens, they cannot have others. They would fain see the sign of Jonah, who lay three days in the whale's belly? Be it so. They shall see how the Son of Man, after being buried for three days, shall live again."
Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant over the sperm whale's head, so, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach.
This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years. The Battering-Ram. Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale's head, I would have you, as a sensible physiologist, simply particularly remark its front aspect, in all its compacted collectedness.
Far back on the side of the head, and low down, near the angle of either whale's jaw, if you narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would fancy to be a young colt's eye; so out of all proportion is it to the magnitude of the head.
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