But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with the corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now again steadily swimming forward; and had almost passed the ship,—­which thus far had been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the present her headway had been stopped.  He seemed swimming with his utmost velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight path in the sea.

“Oh!  Ahab,” cried Starbuck, “not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist.  See!  Moby Dick seeks thee not.  It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!”

Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled to leeward, by both oars and canvas.  And at last when Ahab was sliding by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck’s face as he leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and follow him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval.  Glancing upwards, he saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three mast-heads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats which had but just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in repairing them.  One after the other, through the portholes, as he sped, he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flack, busying themselves on deck among bundles of new irons and lances.  As he saw all this; as he heard the hammers in the broken boats! far other hammers seemed driving a nail into his heart.  But he rallied.  And now marking that the vane or flag was gone from the mainmast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast.

Whether fagged by the three days’ running chase, and the resistance to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some latent deceitfulness and malice in him:  whichever was true, the White Whale’s way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly nearing him once more; though indeed the whale’s last start had not been so long a one as before.  And still as Ahab glided over the waves the unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to the boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost every dip.

“Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars.  Pull on! ’tis the better rest, the shark’s jaw than the yielding water.”

“But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!”

“They will last long enough! pull on!—­But who can tell”—­he muttered—­“whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on Ahab?—­But pull on!  Aye, all alive, now—­we near him.  The helm! take the helm; let me pass,”—­and so saying, two of the oarsmen helped him forward to the bows of the still flying boat.