walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, ahab commanded the t’gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. the best man in the ship must take the helm. then, with every mast-head manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. the strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were struggling in her—one to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. and had you watched ahab’s face that night, you would have thought that in him also two different things were warring. while his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. on life and death this old man walked. but though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time.