Moby Dick

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those cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one
lone whale on the outskirts of the shoal. In about three minutes' time,
Queequeg's harpoon was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray
in our faces, and then running away with us like light, steered straight
for the heart of the herd. Though such a movement on the part of the
whale struck under such circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented; and
indeed is almost always more or less anticipated; yet does it present
one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. For as the swift
monster drags you deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid
adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a delirious throb.

As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power of
speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as we
thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by
the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was
like a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer
through their complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what