The Sperm Whale's Pitch Poling

Moby Dick swam swiftly round and round the wrecked crew, sideways. The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast before antiochuss elephants in the boo of maccabes. Meanwhile, ahab, half smothered in the foam of the whale's insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim, though he could still keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that. Helpless ahab's head was seen like a tossed bubble, which the least chance shook, might burst from the boat's fragmentary stern fedal incuriously and mildly eyed him.