Chapter 98 - Stowing Down and Clearing Up
Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off described from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors, and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed alongside and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the headsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in due time, he is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the fire; but now it remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of the description by rehearsing, singing, if I may, the romantic proceeding of decanting off his oil into the casks and striking them down int
