 those noble natures contain the entire circumferences of inferior
souls.
    »The harpoon,« said Ahab, half-way rising, and draggingly leaning on one
bended arm - »is it safe?«
    »Ay, sir, for it was not darted; this is it,« said Stubb, showing it.
    »Lay it before me; - any missing men?«
    »One, two, three, four, five; - there were five oars, sir, and here are five
men.«
    »That 's good. - Help me, man; I wish to stand. So, so, I see him! there!
there! going to leeward still; what a leaping spout! - Hands off from me! The
eternal sap runs up in Ahab's bones again! Set the sail; out oars; the helm!«
    It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked up by
another boat, help to work that second boat; and the chase is thus continued
with what is called double-banked oars. It was thus now. But the added power of
the boat did not equal the added power of the whale, for he seemed to have
treble-banked his every fin; swimming with a velocity which plainly showed, that
if now, under these circumstances, pushed on, the chase would prove an
indefinitely prolonged, if not a hopeless one; nor could any crew endure for so
long a period, such an unintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a thing
barely tolerable only in some one brief vicissitude. The ship itself, then, as
it sometimes happens, offered the most promising intermediate means of
overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her, and were soon
swayed up to their cranes - the two parts of the wrecked boats having been
previously secured by her - and then hoisting everything to her side, and
stacking her canvas high up, and sideways outstretching it with stun'-sails,
like the double-jointed wings of an albatross, the Pequod bore down in the
leeward wake of Moby-Dick. At the well-known, methodic intervals, the whale's
glittering spout was regularly announced from the manned mastheads; and when he
would be reported as just gone down, Ahab would take the time, and then pacing
the deck, binnacle watch in hand, so soon as the last second of the allotted
hour expired, his voice was heard. - »Whose is the doubloon now? D' ye see him?«
and if the reply was No
