Moby Dick

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By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from the
carcase; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild ocean
darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the fierce
flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and
illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek
fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to
some vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the
bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad
sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and
folded them in conflagrations.

The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth
in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the
pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship's stokers. With huge pronged
poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or
stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out
of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen