Moby Dick

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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 main-mast-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.