"Heart of wrought steel!" murmured Starbuck, gazing over the side and
following with his eyes the receding boat--"canst thou yet ring boldly
to that sight?--lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed
by them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third
day?--For when three days flow together in one continuous intense
pursuit; be sure the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the
third the evening and the end of that thing--be that end what it may.
Oh! my God! what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so
deadly calm, yet expectant,--fixed at the top of a shudder! Future
things swim before me, as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past
is somehow grown dim. Mary, girl! thou fadest in pale glories behind
me; boy! I seem to see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest
problems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep between--Is my
journey's end coming? My legs feel faint; like his who has footed it
all day. Feel thy heart,--beats it yet?--Stir thyself,
Starbuck!--stave it off--move, move! speak aloud!--Mast-head there.
See ye my boy's hand on the hill?--Crazed;--aloft there!--keep thy
keenest eye upon the boats:--mark well the whale!--Ho! again!--drive
off that hawk! see! he pecks--he tears the vane"--pointing to the red
flag flying at the main-truck--"Ha! he soars away with it!--Where's the
old man now? sees't thou that sight, oh Ahab!--shudder, shudder!"
The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the
mast-heads--a downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had
sounded; but intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on
his way a little sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew
maintaining the profoundest silence, as the head-beat waves hammered
and hammered against the opposing bow.
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