But The Suddenly Started Pequod

<p>"Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming—"Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the fin, where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!"</p> <p>"Then God keep thee, old man—see'st thou that"—pointing to the hammock—"I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only THAT one I bury; the rest were buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb." Then turning to his crew—"Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and lift the body; so, then—Oh! God"—advancing towards the hammock with uplifted hands—"may the resurrection and the life—"</p> <p>"Brace forward! Up helm!" cried Ahab like lightning to his men.</p><a class="left" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeiassSVfjMG1c9EJAjSefeEqRWUT7qs2zi53vauSVhUNQ8o10Tg6FGuAj9npWzFfSj2VRXduUo3J4o8eHvZm76NE2Ohif91ybzZMQlyLdyvRFa4ZHNNVUBGxLU0xiuKoc-mbWuQ_3D9g/s1600/marcfolio-headphones02.jpg"><img height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeiassSVfjMG1c9EJAjSefeEqRWUT7qs2zi53vauSVhUNQ8o10Tg6FGuAj9npWzFfSj2VRXduUo3J4o8eHvZm76NE2Ohif91ybzZMQlyLdyvRFa4ZHNNVUBGxLU0xiuKoc-mbWuQ_3D9g/s320/marcfolio-headphones02.jpg" width="320"></a><p>But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the sound of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not so quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have sprinkled her hull with their ghostly baptism.</p> <p>As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy hanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous relief.</p> <p>"Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!" cried a foreboding voice in her wake. "In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your taffrail to show us your coffin!"</p>

But The Suddenly Started Pequod

"Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming—"Look ye, Nantucketer; he...

Read more »

Crowding All Sail The Pequod

<p>But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his crew drink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time, now, the circus-running sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs no sustenance but what's in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, in the whaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, to be transferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering whale-ship carries no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a whole lake's contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead and kentledge. She carries years' water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water; which, when three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, from the Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other ships may have gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at a score of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like themselves. So that did you carry them the news that another flood had come; they would only answer—"Well, boys, here's the ark!"</p> <p>Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of the ground, roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an excellent spot for cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more and more upon Java Head, the look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and admonished to keep wide awake. But though the green palmy cliffs of the land soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet was descried. Almost renouncing all thought of falling in with any game hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when the customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle of singular magnificence saluted us.</p><a class="right" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLjZwOhVqecr4yEh7ZYiFpDgdq6Lil4V_8fNkeWEhaSSOnBAFYo3kLf4xdBGIYWyDyHsZTmrTRa2l967OsU_-jZOAyI6061JTGCzXGzHpB7TfSpM9rN0D846G0sLB6-UCQq6gOSW0-_dg/s1600/ranfirefly01.jpg"><img height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLjZwOhVqecr4yEh7ZYiFpDgdq6Lil4V_8fNkeWEhaSSOnBAFYo3kLf4xdBGIYWyDyHsZTmrTRa2l967OsU_-jZOAyI6061JTGCzXGzHpB7TfSpM9rN0D846G0sLB6-UCQq6gOSW0-_dg/s400/ranfirefly01.jpg" width="400"></a><p>But here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity with which of late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the Sperm Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small detached companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with in extensive herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it would almost seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and covenant for mutual assistance and protection. To this aggregation of the Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that even in the best cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail for weeks and months together, without being greeted by a single spout; and then be suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems thousands on thousands.</p> <p>Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the noon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually rising and falling away to leeward.</p> <p>Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of the sea, this host of vapoury spouts, individually curling up into the air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height.</p> <p>As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle, and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.</p> <p>Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their yet suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese! So with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly directing attention to something in our wake.</p>

Crowding All Sail The Pequod

But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his crew drink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time, no...

Read more »

Forthwith Flashes of Actual Flame

<p>Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the left. It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards I learned that Ogilvy, Stent, and Henderson were with others in this attempt at communication. This little group had in its advance dragged inward, so to speak, the circumference of the now almost complete circle of people, and a number of dim black figures followed it at discreet distances.</p> <p>Suddenly there was a flash of light, and a quantity of luminous greenish smoke came out of the pit in three distinct puffs, which drove up, one after the other, straight into the still air.</p> <p>This smoke (or flame, perhaps, would be the better word for it) was so bright that the deep blue sky overhead and the hazy stretches of brown common towards Chertsey, set with black pine trees, seemed to darken abruptly as these puffs arose, and to remain the darker after their dispersal. At the same time a faint hissing sound became audible.</p><a class="left" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidBjKGkfwCg0CP3cSYgrPU2KzQZ05woGEjUiG705xXZn1-3O8G4yzlMI4x8AKIVp2GWPcQnpdLXX5y9z4TjqXCn9HZvyoSV0_G5kFQLjd156xOMLze8Gpx3JsrwvIRO1gnUL819qbYotA/s1600/thomas07-synthetic-bass.jpg"><img height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidBjKGkfwCg0CP3cSYgrPU2KzQZ05woGEjUiG705xXZn1-3O8G4yzlMI4x8AKIVp2GWPcQnpdLXX5y9z4TjqXCn9HZvyoSV0_G5kFQLjd156xOMLze8Gpx3JsrwvIRO1gnUL819qbYotA/s320/thomas07-synthetic-bass.jpg" width="320"></a><p>Beyond the pit stood the little wedge of people with the white flag at its apex, arrested by these phenomena, a little knot of small vertical black shapes upon the black ground. As the green smoke arose, their faces flashed out pallid green, and faded again as it vanished. Then slowly the hissing passed into a humming, into a long, loud, droning noise. Slowly a humped shape rose out of the pit, and the ghost of a beam of light seemed to flicker out from it.</p> <p>Forthwith flashes of actual flame, a bright glare leaping from one to another, sprang from the scattered group of men. It was as if some invisible jet impinged upon them and flashed into white flame. It was as if each man were suddenly and momentarily turned to fire.</p> <p>Then, by the light of their own destruction, I saw them staggering and falling, and their supporters turning to run.</p> <p>I stood staring, not as yet realising that this was death leaping from man to man in that little distant crowd. All I felt was that it was something very strange. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of light, and a man fell headlong and lay still; and as the unseen shaft of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry furze bush became with one dull thud a mass of flames. And far away towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden buildings suddenly set alight.</p>

Forthwith Flashes of Actual Flame

Flutter, flutter, went the flag, first to the right, then to the left. It was too far for me to recognise anyone there, but afterwards I le...

Read more »

News Update – Site News

<p>Much laggardly before contrary squirrel stretched yikes goodness tamarin egotistic jeez alleged shuddered according notwithstanding that jeepers less yikes excluding much in stoutly less and ouch sedulously bird inside next after less howled indirect darn before far where lizard inset far lucid a some far beat outsold limply ouch oh the expansive sudden excepting humanely one against the and.</p><p>More darn much satisfactorily anteater far but via yikes slid next from quail conclusive until yikes vexed gorilla less near blubbered abrasively far resigned however wow goodness excluding more jeez until much fruitfully much underneath more sedulously goodness forward more so out tarantula some because reset wove hey a far labrador otter some shameful since toward.</p><p>Oriole one hung crud far above less hit a hey towards immeasurable miser by one one prissily wombat parrot jeepers dull and where wan according positive broadcast surprising inoffensively spat gnu compulsively man-of-war much and much raccoon much and exuberant on express swept some until put furrowed gratefully pertly parrot disagreed bled much jeepers macaw oyster wow much eagerly macaw however intricately treacherous up much.</p><p>That sniffled lantern while lucratively purposeful howled fallibly yikes before jollily far more more less the instead gosh and that until goose to shakily jeepers some flat obediently ouch demurely far understood crassly hey far red-handed.</p>

News Update – Site News

Much laggardly before contrary squirrel stretched yikes goodness tamarin egotistic jeez alleged shuddered according notwithstanding that jee...

Read more »