Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowls softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's back; and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons.
三只小艇的轻快的艇头，象无声无息的鹦鹉螺壳般穿过海面疾驰而去；只有等到接近仇敌时，这才放缓下来。到他们划近它的时候，洋面显得更其光滑，好象浪潮上面铺了张地毡；好象午刻时分的草原，一片静穆。最后，这个屏声弃息的猎人已非常迫近他那似乎是无可置疑的猎物了，连它那光闪辉煌的整个背峰也清晰可见，仿佛是件孤寂的东西，一面在海洋上悄悄荡去，一面不断地喷出一圈圈最精致的、羊毛似的、碧绿色的泡沫来。猎人看到了远处有只稍微突出的头，非常大、皱纹百结。在那只头前面，远在那片柔滑如土耳其地毡的海上，映照出它那阔大、乳白色额头的闪闪发光的白影，一阵乐声回旋似的涟漪正伴着那影子在嬉戏着；在后边，蔚蓝的海水交替地流过来，流进了它那滚动的溪谷般的稳定的裂尾里；璀璨的水泡在它两旁腾起跳跃。可是，这些水泡又被点缀在海上的许多偶尔惊惶起飞的灰鸟的细爪搅散了；而且，象只金碧辉煌的大商船上升起一支旗杆似的，这只白鲸背上矗立有一支新近插进的捕鲸枪，枪杆子高高地晃来晃去；时不时地，白云密布似的一群软爪野鸟，一会儿在展翅高飞，象是顶在这条鲸身上的华盖一般，掠过来又掠过去，一会儿又悄悄地栖止在这根杆子上，长尾巴象枪旗般飘扬不息。