immense creature hung on high, apparently motionless, and then
fell--a hundred tons of solid flesh--back into the sea. On
either side of that mountainous mass the waters rose in shining
towers of snowy foam, which fell in their turn, whirling and
eddying around us as we tossed and fell like a chip in a
whirlpool. Blinded by the flying spray, baling for very life to
free the boat from the water with which she was nearly full, it
was some minutes before I was able to decide whether we were
still uninjured or not. Then I saw, at a little distance, the
whale lying quietly. As I looked he spouted, and the vapour was
red with his blood. "Starn all!" again cried our chief, and we
retreated to a considerable distance. The old warrior's
practised eye had detected the coming climax of our efforts, the
dying agony or "furry" of the great mammal. Turning upon his
side, he began to move in a circular direction, slowly at first,
then faster and faster, until he was rushing round at tremendous
speed, his great head raised quite out of water at times,
clashing his enormous jaws. Torrents of blood poured from his
spout-hole, accompanied by hoarse bellowings, as of some gigantic
bull, but really caused by the labouring breath trying to pass
through the clogged air passages. The utmost caution and
rapidity of manipulation of the boat was necessary to avoid his
maddened rush, but this gigantic energy was short-lived. In a
few minutes he subsided slowly in death, his mighty body reclined
on one side, the fin uppermost waving limply as he rolled to the
swell, while the small waves broke gently over the carcass in a
low, monotonous surf, intensifying the profound silence that had
succeeded the tumult of our conflict with the late monarch of the
deep. Hardly had the flurry ceased, when we hauled up alongside
of our hard-won prize, in order to secure a line to him in a