Immediately, by Starbuck’s orders, strains had been secured to it at totally different points, so that ere lengthy every boat was a buoy; the sunken whale being suspended a couple of inches beneath them by the cords. By very heedful management, when the ship drew nigh, the whale was transferred to her facet, and was strongly secured there by the stiffest fluke-chains, for it was plain that unless artificially upheld, the physique would at once sink to the underside. The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and to the eternal honor of our calling be it stated, that the first whale attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent. Be it said, nonetheless, that the Sperm Whale is way less liable to this accident than any other species. Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the lately killed Sperm Whale is a very curious factor; nor has any fisherman yet adequately accounted for it. Soon, whereas the crews have been awaiting the arrival of the ship, the physique showed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled. While many mother and father assume that explaining the results of sending out express images will get teenagers to cease, they could also be missing the point.
In vain handspikes and crows were delivered to bear upon the immovable fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the timberheads; and so low had the whale now settled that the submerged ends could not be in any respect approached, while every moment entire tons of ponderosity appeared added to the sinking bulk, and the ship appeared on the purpose of going over. It was not lengthy after the sinking of the physique that a cry was heard from the Pequod’s mast-heads, saying that the Jungfrau was again reducing her boats; though the one spout in sight was that of a Fin-Back, belonging to the species of uncapturable whales, because of its incredible energy of swimming. Nevertheless, the Fin-Back’s spout is so much like the Sperm Whale’s, that by unskilful fishermen it is often mistaken for it. Usually the lifeless Sperm Whale floats with great buoyancy, with its facet or belly considerably elevated above the floor. This distinction in the species is little doubt imputable in no small diploma to the better amount of bone in the proper Whale; his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing greater than a ton; from this incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. Where one in every of that type go down, twenty Right Whales do.
Nevertheless, he may be deemed a form of involuntary whaleman; at any charge the whale caught him, if he didn’t the whale. At the instant of the dart an ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into greater than sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with swift fury blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and their glorying crews all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask’s boat and marring the bows. Who had darted that stone lance? James Rokop, one other psychologist, says that Marsh is a sexual sadist who killed solely to gratify himself. THE GREASY OR MARSH FRITILLARY. Let not the trendy paintings of this scene mislead us; for although the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of outdated is vaguely represented of a griffin-like shape, and although the battle is depicted on land and the saint on horseback, yet contemplating the good ignorance of those occasions, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists; and contemplating that as in Perseus’ case, St. George’s whale may need crawled up out of the sea on the beach; and contemplating that the animal ridden by St. George might need been solely a big seal, or sea-horse; bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to hold this so-referred to as dragon no aside from the great Leviathan himself.
Suddenly it was like I had run out of brilliant ideas. To cross to the opposite facet of the deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a house. For, by this time, so spent was he by loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had made; lay panting on his facet, impotently flapped together with his stumped fin, then again and again slowly revolved like a waning world; turned up the white secrets and techniques of his stomach; lay like a log, and died. A line-of-battle ship could hardly keep him beneath then. However, Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to the last; hung on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the ship would have been capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with the physique; then, when the command was given to interrupt clear from it, such was the immovable strain upon the timber-heads to which the fluke-chains and cables have been fastened, that it was impossible to forged them off. The ship groaned and gasped. However, opponents organized a referendum that befell on 6 November.
