Moby Dick

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all violently making for one centre. This lucky salvation was cheaply
purchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while standing in the bows
to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean from his head by
the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad flukes close
by.

Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was, it soon
resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having
clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their
onward flight with augmented fleetness. Further pursuit was useless; but
the boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales
might be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had
killed and waifed. The waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which
are carried by every boat; and which, when additional game is at hand,
are inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both to
mark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession, should
the boats of any other ship draw near.