“The ungracious and ungrateful dog!” cried Starbuck; “he mocks and dares me with the very poor-box I filled for him not five minutes ago!”—­ Then in his old intense whisper—­“give way, greyhounds!  Dog to it!”

“I tell ye what it is, men”—­cried Stubb to his crew—­It’s against my religion to get mad; but I’d like to eat that villainous Yarman—­Pull—­ won’t ye?  Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye?  Do ye love brandy?  A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man.  Come, why don’t some of ye burst a blood-vessel?  Who’s that been dropping an anchor overboard—­ we don’t budge an inch—­we’re becalmed.  Halloo, here’s grass growing in the boat’s bottom—­and by the Lord, the mast there’s budding.  This won’t do, boys.  Look at that Yarman!  The short and long of it is, men, will ye spit fire or not?”

“Oh! see the suds he makes!” cried Flask, dancing up and down—­“What a hump—­Oh, do pile on the beef—­lays like a log!  Oh! my lads, do spring—­slap-jacks and quahogs for supper, you know, my lads—­ baked clams and muffins—­oh, do, do, spring,—­he’s a hundred barreler—­ don’t lose him now—­don’t oh, don’t!—­see that Yarman—­Oh, won’t ye pull for your duff, my lads—­such a sog! such a sogger!  Don’t ye love sperm?  There goes three thousand dollars, men!—­a bank!—­a whole bank!  The bank of England!—­Oh, do, do, do!—­What’s that Yarman about now?”

At this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lamp-feeder at the advancing boats, and also his oil-can; perhaps with the double view of retarding his rivals’ way, and at the same time economically accelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the backward toss.

“The unmannerly Dutch dogger!” cried Stubb.  “Pull now, men, like fifty thousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils.  What d’ye say, Tashtego; are you the man to snap your spine in two-and-twenty pieces for the honor of old Gayhead?  What d’ye say?”

“I say, pull like god-dam,”—­cried the Indian.

Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the Pequod’s three boats now began ranging almost abreast; and, so disposed, momentarily neared him.  In that fine, loose, chivalrous attitude of the headsman when drawing near to his prey, the three mates stood up proudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with an exhilarating cry of, “There she slides, now!  Hurrah for the white-ash breeze!  Down with the Yarman!  Sail over him!”

But so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite of all their gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this race, had not a righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which caught the blade of his midship oarsman.  While this clumsy lubber was striving to free his white-ash, and while, in consequence, Derick’s boat was nigh to capsizing, and he thundering away at his men in a mighty rage;—­that was a good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask.  With a shout, they took a mortal start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the German’s quarter.  An instant more, and all four boats were diagonically in the whale’s immediate wake, while stretching from them, on both sides, was the foaming swell that he made.