Moby Dick

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nor boat to be seen.

"Give way, men," whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheet
of his sail; "there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes.
There's white water again!--close to! Spring!"

Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denoted
that the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they overheard, when
with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck said: "Stand up!" and
Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet.

Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril
so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance
of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent
instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of
fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still
booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like