Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Whale Attacks Boats

The White Whale churning himself into furious speed, nearly instantaneously, rushes among the boats with open jaws and a lashing tail, offering terrifying battle on every side. He seems heedless of the harpoons being darted at him, instead appearing focused on annihilating each separate plank of which the boats are made. Though the boats skillfully maneuver like trained chargers in battle, eluding him for a time—sometimes by only a plank’s breadth—Ahab’s supernatural battle cry drowns out all other sounds. The whale continues his untraceable evolutions, crossing and recrossing while entangling the slack of the three lines now attached to him, gradually foreshortening and warping the boats toward the planted harpoons.

Lines Tangled

The White Whale’s movements entangle the slack lines attached to him in a thousand ways, causing them to foreshorten and warp the boats toward the harpoons planted in his flesh. The whale briefly draws aside, apparently rallying for a more tremendous charge, giving Ahab a moment to pay out more line and then rapidly haul it in again to disencumber it of snarls. Suddenly, caught and twisted like a corkscrew in the maze of line, loose harpoons and lances with their bristling barbs and points come flashing and dripping up to the boat’s bow chocks—a sight more savage than the teeth of sharks.

Ahab Cuts the Line

Faced with the terrible tangle of lines, harpoons, and lances, Ahab realizes only one action is possible. Seizing his boat-knife, he reaches critically within and then through the rays of steel, drags the line beyond the obstruction, passes it inboard to the bowsman, and then twice severs the rope near the chocks. He drops the dangerous fagot of tangled steel into the sea and the boat is fast again. In that same instant, the White Whale makes a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the other boats’ lines, irresistibly dragging Stubb’s and Flask’s more involved boats toward his flukes.