"But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible confirmation in the fate of one of the number that morning. At sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mat-head at the fore; and whether it was the he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was this with the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had not been long at this perch, when c ry was heard - a cry and a rushing - and looking up we saw a falling phantom in the air; and looking down a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the sea........[A]nd thus the first man of the Pequot that mounted the mast to look out for the White Whale, on the White Whale's own peculiar ground; that man was swallowed up in the deep."
- Chapter 126 "The Life-Buoy"
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