It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats in those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them in the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; and whether it was that Ahab’s crew were all such tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the sharks — a matter sometimes well known to affect them, — however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others.

“Heart of wrought steel!” murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and following with his eyes the receding boat — “canst thou yet ring boldly to that sight? —