ure of not a few of their
number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby
Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped
white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese! So with
stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans
before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly
directing attention to something in our wake.

Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear.
It seemed formed of detached white vapours, rising and falling something
like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so completely come and
go; for they constantly hovered, without finally disappearing. Levelling
his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved in his pivot-hole,
crying, "Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to wet the
sails;--Malays, sir, and after us!"

As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should
fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in hot
pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay. But when the swift
Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how very
kind of these tawny philanthropists to assist in speeding her on to
her own chosen pursuit,--mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that they
were. As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his
forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one the
bloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some such fancy as the above seemed
his. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery defile in
which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that through that
gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that through that
same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end;
and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and
inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their
curses;--when all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab's
brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some
stormy tide has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the firm
thing from its place.

But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and
when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the
Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra
side, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then, the
harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the