hammers seemed driving a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now
marking that the vane or flag was gone from the mainmast-head, he
shouted to Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again
for another flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast.

Whether fagged by the three days' running chase, and the resistance to
his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some
latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, the White
Whale's way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly
nearing him once more; though indeed the whale's last start had not
been so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves
the unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to
the boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades
became jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at
almost every dip.

"Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull
on! 'tis the better rest, the shark's jaw than the yielding water."

"But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!"

"They will last long enough! pull on!--But who can tell"--he
muttered--"whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on
Ahab?--But pull on! Aye, all alive, now--we near him. The helm! take
the helm; let me pass,"--and so saying, two of the oarsmen helped him
forward to the bows of the still flying boat.

At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along with
the White Whale's flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its
advance--as the whale sometimes will--and Ahab was fairly within the