Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist; neither ship
nor boat to be seen.
"Give way, men," whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheet
of his sail; "there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes.
There's white water again! close to! Spring!" Though not one of the
oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril so close to them ahead,
yet with their eyes on the intense countenance of the mate in the stern
of the boat, they knew that the imminent instant had come; they heard,
too, an enormous wallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their
litter. Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist, the
waves curling and hissing around us like the erected crests of enraged
serpents.
"That's his hump. _There, there_, give it to him!" whispered Starbuck.
A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of
Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion, came an invisible push from
astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge; the sail
collapsed and exploded; a gush of scalding vapor shot up near by;
something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole
crew were half suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the
white curdling cream of the squall.
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