ket.
"We should meet him soon."

"Aye, aye, sir," and straightway Starbuck did Ahab's bidding, and once
more Ahab swung on high.

A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself now held
long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three points off the
weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the three
mast-heads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced
it.

"Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck
there!--brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind's eye. He's too
far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand over that
helmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast, and I must down. But
let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea; there's
time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and
not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of
Nantucket! The same!--the same!--the same to Noah as to me. There's
a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead
somewhere--to something else than common land, more palmy than the
palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward,
then; the better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old
mast-head! What's this?--green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks.
No such green weather stains on Ahab's head! There's the difference now
between man's old age and matter's. But aye, old mast, we both grow old
together; sound in our hulls, though, are we not, my ship? Aye, minus
a leg, that's all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live
flesh every way. I can't compare with it; and I've known some ships made
of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital stuff of
vital fathers. What's that he said? he should still go before me, my
pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at the
bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and all
night I've been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye,
like many more thou told'st direful truth as touching thyself, O Parsee;
but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good-bye, mast-head--keep a good
eye upon the whale, the while I'm gone. We'll talk to-morrow, nay,
to-night, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail."

He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered
through the cloven blue air to the deck.

In due time the boats were lowered; but as st