Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows of
mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod's gurgling track, pushed her on
like giants' palms outspread. The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded
so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world
boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible
sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; where his
bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian
kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a crucible of
molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat.
Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart; and every time
the tetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to eye
the bright sun's rays produced ahead; and when she profoundly settled by
the stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun's rearward place, and how
the same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating wake.
"Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea-chariot of
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