Into the Sea, a White Whale, and the Old Man's Line

Ahab's yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards heaven by visible wires as arrow like shooting perpendicularly from the sea. The white whale dashed his broad forehead against its bottom and sent it turning over and over into the air till it fell again, gunwall downwards. But soon, as if satisfied that his work for that time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the ocean. And trailing after him the inner tangled lines, continued his leeward way at a traveller's methodic pace, as before.