1 No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly astern.
2 The ship was sailing plungingly; astern the billows rolled in riots.
3 But the whale-boat has no seat astern, no sofa of that sort whatever, and no tiller at all.
4 When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a cable till the body is stripped.
5 Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg ripped and swore astern in the most frightful manner.
6 The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl.
7 The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far to windward; one, less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern.
8 The carcases of both whales had dropped astern; and the head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair of overburdening panniers.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then ... 9 Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern.
10 The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and mutely watches the monster die.
11 Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes, it is plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more than he can one exactly astern.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale's Head—Contrasted View. 12 Meantime, at the first tap of the boat's bottom, the Lakeman had slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool; calmly looking on, he thought his own thoughts.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho's Story. 13 Further pursuit was useless; but the boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales might be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had killed and waifed.
14 Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which, at sea, almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb. 15 Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one instant it tossed and gaped beneath the ship's bows like a chip at the base of a cataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it, and it was seen no more till it came up weltering astern.
16 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 vapour shot up near by; something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us.
17 And now it is struck; for, starting from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his "flurry," the monster horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the day.
Moby Dick By Herman MelvilleContextHighlight In CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale. Your search result may include more than 17 sentences. If you upgrade to a VIP account, you will see up to 500 sentences for one search.