ing a single sound; when, after all this silence, his
unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every
reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had
lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. "There she blows!"
Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet
still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a most
unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously
exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a
lowering.

Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded the
t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The
best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every mast-head
manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange,
upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows
of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air
beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic
influences were struggling in her--one to mount direct to heaven, the
other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched
Ahab's face that night, you would have thought that in him also two
different things were warring. While his one live leg made lively echoes
along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap.
On life and death this old man walked. But though the ship so swiftly
sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot,
yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he
saw it once, but not a second time.

This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days
after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it
was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it
disappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after
night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously
jetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be;
disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and somehow
seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and
further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on.

Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance
with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested
the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore