Moby Dick Chapter 64-67

In which the weary Pequod’s crew painstakingly tows alongside a vast, lifeless whale, under the watchful yet restless eye of Captain Ahab, whilst Stubb indulges himself with a freshly cut steak amid the clamorous feasting of ravenous sharks; and the night is given over to an uneasy truce between man and sea-flesh before the labour of butchering commences at first light. In which the insatiable appetite of the ocean’s scavengers and the grim work of cutting and hoisting the monstrous blubber from the whale’s body are portrayed with careful detail, lending a somber chorus to this nocturnal vigil on the rolling deck.