Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand other whales were
brought to his ship, all that would not one jot advance his grand,
monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought from the sound on
the Pequod's decks, that all hands were preparing to cast anchor in
the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along the deck, and thrust
rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking links, the vast
corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by the head to the
stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies with its black
hull close to the vessel's and seen through the darkness of the night,
which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two--ship and whale,
seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines while
the other remains standing.*
*A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most
reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside,
is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part
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