210 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



"Pull up — pull up!" he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning 

 whale relaxed in his wrath. "Pull up! close to!" and the boat ranged 

 along the fish's flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly 

 churned his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully 

 churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold 

 watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful 

 of breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought 

 was the innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting 

 from this trance into that unspeakable thing called his "flurry," the 

 monster horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in im- 

 penetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft instantly 

 dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that fren- 

 zied twilight into the clear air of the day. 



And now abating in his flurry the whale once more rolled out 

 into view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and con- 

 tracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. 

 At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the pur- 

 ple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, 

 ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had 

 burst! 



"He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo. 



"Yes; both pipes smoked out!" and withdrawing his own from his 

 mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a mo- 

 ment stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made. 



Such accounts, reflecting the hectic atmosphere and breath- 

 taking fortunes of the chase, can leave little doubt concern- 

 ing the thrilling excitement experienced by the men in the 

 boats. On the other hand, the very intensity and scope of 

 whaling dangers and vicissitudes lent an air of apparent ex- 

 aggeration to their recital which sometimes raised up scoffers 

 and disbelievers. For instance, the London Punchy after read- 

 ing the story of the loss of the ship Ann Alexander which ap- 

 peared in the New Bedford Mercury y was moved to write a 

 scoffing poem which was as delightful as it was unwarranted 

 by the facts. ^ In spite of its many stanzas this poem, which 

 was published in the issue of December 6, 1851, is worthy of 

 reproduction in fullj for beyond doubt it represented in a light 

 and supercilious vein the reactions of many less clever persons 

 to the supposed exaggerations of tales of whaling disasters. 



8 See the preceding pages of this chapter for a brief account of the essential 

 facts regarding the loss of the Ann Alexander, 



