And though the other boats
unharmed, still hovered hard by; still they dared not pull into the
eddy to strike, lest that should be the signal for the instant
destruction of the jeopardized castaways, Ahab and all; nor in that
case could they themselves hope to escape. With straining eyes, then,
they remained on the outer edge of the direful zone, whose centre had
now become the old man's head.
Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship's
mast heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene;
and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her:--"Sail on
the"--but that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and
whelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it again, and chancing
to rise on a towering crest, he shouted,--"Sail on the whale!--Drive
him off!"
The _Pequod's_ prows were pointed; and breaking up the charmed circle,
she effectually parted the whale from his victim. As he suddenly swam
off, the boats flew to the rescue.
Dragged into Stubb's boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes, the white
brine caking in his wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab's bodily
strength did crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body's doom: for a
long time, lying all crushed in the bottom of Stubb's boat, like one
trodden under foot of herds of elephants.
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