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And thus , while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze , the other stubbornly fought against it ; and so the two vessels parted ; the crew of the Pequod looking with grave , lingering glances towards the receding Bachelor ; but the Bachelor’s men never heeding their gaze for the lively revelry they were in . And as Ahab , leaning over the taffrail , eyed the homeward - bound craft , he took from his pocket a small vial of sand , and then looking from the ship to the vial , seemed thereby bringing two remote associations together , for that vial was filled with Nantucket soundings . CHAPTER 116 . The Dying Whale . Not seldom in this life , when , on the right side , fortune’s favourites sail close by us , we , though all adroop before , catch somewhat of the rushing breeze , and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out . So seemed it with the Pequod . For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor , whales were seen and four were slain ; and one of them by Ahab . It was far down the afternoon ; and when all the spearings of the crimson fight were done : and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky , sun and whale both stilly died together ; then , such a sweetness and such plaintiveness , such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air , that it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of the Manilla isles , the Spanish land - breeze , wantonly turned sailor , had gone to sea , freighted with these vesper hymns . Soothed again , but only soothed to deeper gloom , Ahab , who had sterned off from the whale , sat intently watching his final wanings from the now tranquil boat . For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm whales dying — the turning sunwards of the head , and so expiring — that strange spectacle , beheld of such a placid evening , somehow to Ahab conveyed a wondrousness unknown before . “ He turns and turns him to it , — how slowly , but how steadfastly , his homage - rendering and invoking brow , with his last dying motions . He too worships fire ; most faithful , broad , baronial vassal of the sun ! — Oh that these too - favouring eyes should see these too - favouring sights . Look ! here , far water - locked ; beyond all hum of human weal or woe ; in these most candid and impartial seas ; where to traditions no rocks furnish tablets ; where for long Chinese ages , the billows have still rolled on speechless and unspoken to , as stars that shine upon the Niger’s unknown source ; here , too , life dies sunwards full of faith ; but see ! no sooner dead , than death whirls round the corpse , and it heads some other way . “ Oh , thou dark Hindoo half of nature , who of drowned bones hast builded thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas ; thou art an infidel , thou queen , and too truly speakest to me in the wide - slaughtering Typhoon , and the hushed burial of its after calm . Nor has this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head , and then gone round again , without a lesson to me .
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