boat was pulling round close under the stern.

"The sharks! the sharks!" cried a voice from the low cabin-window
there; "O master, my master, come back!"

But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the
boat leaped on.

Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when
numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath
the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time
they dipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with
their bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats
in those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them
in the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of
marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that
had been observed by the _Pequod_ since the White Whale had been first
descried; and whether it was that Ahab's crew were all such
tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the
senses of the sharks--a matter sometimes well known to affect them,
however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting
the others.

"Heart of wrought steel!" murmured Starbuck, gazing over the side and
following with his eyes the receding boat--"canst thou yet ring boldly
to that sight?--lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed
by them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third
day?--For when three days flow together in one continuous intense
pursuit; be sure the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the
third the evening and the end of that thing--be that end what it may.
Oh! my God! what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so
deadly calm, yet expectant,--fixed at the top of a shudder! Future
things swim before me, as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past
is somehow grown dim. Mary, girl! thou fadest in pale glories behind
me; boy! I seem to see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest
problems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep between--Is my
journey's end coming? My legs feel faint; like his who has footed it
all day. Feel thy heart,--beats it yet?--Stir thyself,
Starbuck!--stave it off--move, move! speak aloud!--Mast-head there.
See ye my boy's hand on the hill?--Crazed;--aloft there!--keep thy
keenest eye upon the boats:--mark well the whale!--Ho! again!--drive
off that hawk! see! he pecks--he tears the vane"--pointing to the red
flag flying at th