Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead.  “I grow blind; hands! stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way.  Is’t night?”

“The whale!  The ship!” cried the cringing oarsmen.

“Oars! oars!  Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea that ere it be for ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark!  I see:  the ship! the ship!  Dash on, my men!  Will ye not save my ship?”

But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water.

Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego’s mast-head hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster just as soon as he.

“The whale, the whale!  Up helm, up helm!  Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close!  Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman’s fainting fit.  Up helm, I say—­ye fools, the jaw! the jaw!  Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities?  Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work.  Steady! helmsman, steady.  Nay, nay!  Up helm again!  He turns to meet us!  Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart.  My God, stand by me now!”

“Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here.  I grin at thee, thou grinning whale!  Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb’s own unwinking eye?  And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood!  I grin at thee, thou grinning whale!  Look ye, sun, moon, and stars!  I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost.  For all that, I would yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup!  Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but there’ll be plenty of gulping soon!  Why fly ye not, O Ahab!  For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his drawers!  A most mouldy and over salted death, though;—­cherries! cherries! cherries!  Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!”

“Cherries?  I only wish that we were where they grow.  Oh, Stubb, I hope my poor mother’s drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will now come to her, for the voyage is up.”