Not P but Moby-Dick (48)

[Mike Jing]

>From Chapter 60:

Second: This arrangement is indispensable for common safety’s sake; for
were the lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were
the whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking
minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed boat
would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea;
and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again.

Does the "smoking" here have anything at all to do with tobacco smoking?
The existing translations all went for a Chinese saying that has to do with
tobacco smoking, which I feel is inappropriate here.