Moby Dick

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other thing for the whale-spout, as the event itself soon proved; for
hardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardly was the rope belayed to its
pin on deck, when he struck the key-note to an orchestra, that made the
air vibrate as with the combined discharges of rifles. The triumphant
halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was heard, as--much nearer to the ship
than the place of the imaginary jet, less than a mile ahead--Moby Dick
bodily burst into view! For not by any calm and indolent spoutings; not
by the peaceable gush of that mystic fountain in his head, did the White
Whale now reveal his vicinity; but by the far more wondrous phenomenon
of breaching. Rising with his utmost velocity from the furthest depths,
the Sperm Whale thus booms his entire bulk into the pure element of
air, and piling up a mountain of dazzling foam, shows his place to the
distance of seven miles and more. In those moments, the torn, enraged
waves he shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases, this breaching is his
act of defiance.

"There she breaches! there she breaches!" was the cry, as in his