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Updated: May 10, 2025
This might be very true; but I must confess I was very glad to see one, of the boats come to our assistance, while the mother whale, encumbered with the heavy harpoon and line, and exhausted with the fountain of black blood which she threw up, drew near to her calf, and died by its side; evidently, in her last moments, more occupied with the preservation of her young than of herself.
But dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope's end. Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart that he held, the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke:
The answer to the riddle is that they liked the life and had always the gambling spirit which hopes for a lucky turn of the cards. The countless episodes of fragile boats smashed to kindling by fighting whales, of the attack renewed with harpoon and lance, of ships actually rammed and sunk, would fill a volume by themselves and have been stirringly narrated in many a one.
As the crew of each boat accomplished the work of coiling away their lines, they gave three hearty cheers, to which we all responded; so we had as much cheering as at a sailing match. I must try to describe a harpoon, for the benefit of those who have never seen one. It is the whaler's especial weapon the important instrument of his success. It consists of a "socket," "shank," and "mouth."
For three days we lay almost motionless on the glassy water, sometimes surrounded by large flocks of sea-gulls. The weed brought by the gulf stream, floated around some branches we fished up, were full of beautiful little shells. Once a large school of black-fish came around the vessel, and the carpenter climbed down on the fore-chains, with a harpoon to strike one.
The head of the whale is avoided, because it cannot be penetrated with the harpoon; but any part of the body, between the head and the tail, will admit of the full length of the instrument, without danger of obstruction.
The other sailor managed to hit a porpoise, but he was excited, too, and the harpoon didn't go in the right place. When the sailors up on deck tried to haul the porpoise in, it broke away, and went swimming off. Then those sailors came back on deck and two others took their places. One of those others had been harpooner on a whaleship before he went on the Industry.
Undoubtedly the latter's encounter with the Abraham Lincoln, when the Canadian hit it with his harpoon, had led Commander Farragut to recognize the narwhale as actually an underwater boat, more dangerous than any unearthly cetacean! Yes, this had to be the case, and undoubtedly they were now chasing this dreadful engine of destruction on every sea!
The ship leant over like a maiden shrinking from a kiss, then, shivering, fled away, leaping from billow to billow as they rose and tossed their white arms about her, fain to drag her down and hold her to ocean's heaving breast. The rigging tautened, and the huge sails flapped in thunder as the Harpoon sped upon her course, and all around was greatness and the present majesty of power.
While we stood on the shore of the island the sound of human voices reached our ears, and we saw in the distance several canoes descending the stream. Each carried three men, two paddling and one standing up with a large harpoon attached to a rope in his hand. They were in pursuit of some large dark creatures whose heads, just rising above the water, looked like those of enormous cart-horses.
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