, who, completely paralysed as it were,
helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the sea. Had these
leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over the pasture by three
fierce wolves, they could not possibly have evinced such excessive dismay. But
this occasional timidity is characteristic of almost all herding creatures.
Though banding together in tens of thousands, the lion-maned buffaloes of the
West have fled before a solitary horseman. Witness, too, all human beings, how
when herded together in the sheepfold of a theatre's pit, they will, at the
slightest alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding,
trampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each other to death. Best,
therefore, withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us, for
there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by
the madness of men.
    Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion, yet it
is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced not retreated, but
collectively remained in one place. As is customary in those cases, the boats at
once separated, each making for some one lone whale on the outskirts of the
shoal. In about three minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon was flung; the stricken
fish darted blinding spray in our faces, and then running away with us like
light, steered straight for the heart of the herd. Though such a movement on the
part of the whale struck under such circumstances is in no wise unprecedented;
and indeed is almost always more or less anticipated; yet does it present one of
the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. For as the swift monster drags
you deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life
and only exist in a delirious throb.
    As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power of speed
to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as we thus tore a
white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by the crazed creatures
to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was like a ship mobbed by ice-isles
in a tempest, and striving to steer through their complicated channels and
straits, knowing not at what moment it may be locked in and crushed.
    But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully; now sheering off from
this monster directly across our route in advance; now edging away from that,
whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead; while all the