g Tashtego there;
this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between
the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that ethereal
thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his
hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with arch-angelic
shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive
form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like
Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of
heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.

Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen
white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the
great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

[1] This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its
designation (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary
up-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called
pitchpoling previously described. By this motion the whale must best
and most comprehensively view whatever objects may be encircling him.

THE CORVETTE _CLAYMORE_

From "Ninety-three," BY VICTOR HUGO

The corvette, instead of sailing south, in the direction of St.
Catherine, headed to the north, then, veering towards the west, had
boldly entered that arm of the sea between Sark and Jersey called the
Passage of the Deroute. There was then no lighthouse at any point on
either coast. It had been a clear sunset; the night was darker than
summer nights usually are; it was moonlight, but large clouds, rather
of the equinox than of the solstice overspread the sky, and, judging by
appearances, the moon would not be visible until she reached the
horizon at the moment of setting. A few clouds hung low near the
surface of the sea and covered it with vapor.

All this darkness was favorable. Gacquoil, the pilot, intended to
leave Jersey on the left, Guernsey on the right, and by boldly sailing
between Hanois and Dover, to reach some bay on the coast near St. Malo,
a longer but safer route than the one through Minqulers; for the French
coaster had standing orders to keep an unusually sharp lookout between
St. Helier and Granville.

If the wind were favorable, and nothing happened, by dint of setting
all sail Gacquoil hoped to reach the coast of France at daybreak.

All went well. The corvette had just passed Gros Nez. Towards nine
o'clock the weather looked sullen, as the s