was a hurrah, for we now thought that we had him. Off he set with his
nose up, right in the wind's eye, towing the two boats at the rate of
twelve miles an hour; our stems cleaving through the sea, and throwing
off the water like a plume of feathers on each side of the bows, while
the sun's rays pierced through the spray and formed bright rainbows. We
hoped soon to tire him, and to be able to haul in upon our lines, so as
to get near enough to give him our lances; but that was only hope, as
you'll hear. Of a sudden, he stopped, turned round, and made right for
us, with his jaws open; then, all we had to do was to balk him, and give
him the lance. He did not seem to have made up his mind which boat he
would attack--we were pretty near together, and he yawed at one, and
then at the other. At last he made right for the other boat, and the
boatsetter dodged him very cleverly, while we pulled up to him, and I
put the lance up to the stock into his side. He made a plunge as if he
were going to 'sound' again; and as he did so, with his flukes he threw
our boat into the air a matter of twenty feet, cutting it clean in half,
and one of the boat's thwarts came right athwart of my nose, and it
never has been straight since. So now you have it, messmate; and I
shouldn't mind if you passed the beer this way, for this long yarn has
made my throat somewhat dry."

"When you've had your swig, old chap, you may as well tell us how the
matter ended," observed my father.

"Why, it just ended in our losing the whale in the first place, and the
boat with her gear in the second. We were picked up by the other boat,
and there was no time to be lost, for the sharks were brought together
by the scent of the whale's blood; the whale sounded again, and we were
obliged to cut the line and return on board. But God bless you,
messmate, I could tell you many a longer yarn than that, and mayhap I