200 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



He had been gazing intently astern, waiting for the little vessel to 

 rise over a wave so that he might scan the horizon, when suddenly 

 and absolutely without warning something enormous, jet black, and 

 glistening broke out of the side of a wave, heading straight for the 

 boat. Hardly able to believe his eyes. Boatswain Garvey nonetheless 

 reached behind him and grabbed the first man his wildly gesticulating 

 hand encountered. This happened to be a twelve-year-old lad named 

 Jake Horsefield. Seizing him firmly, Boatswain Garvey pulled him 

 to the stern rail, and hissing an admonition to be silent into his ear, 

 he pointed. 



"See you what I see?" he whispered, and when Jake nodded em- 

 phatically, he shouted into his ear, "Get you forward with all speed, 

 Jake, and tell the captain a whale be upon us. Make thou haste!" 



The boy scrambled off through the wildly pitching vessel, but 

 so excited was he that he quite forgot prescribed behavior and kept 

 calling to the rest of the crew as he passed, "Whale off! Whale off!" 

 so that by the time he reached the bow the whole company was in 

 an uproar. Thus the most surprised man abroad in the end was Cap- 

 tain Christopher Hussey, but when he finally got the gist of Jake's 

 panting message, he leaped into action. 



Seizing the harping-irons which always lay ready forward, he gave 

 frantic signaled commands to Mate Pritchard and Boatswain Garvey. 

 The other men had already broken out oars, and all now waited, 

 resting upon their stretchers, with eyes concentrated upon Boat- 

 swain Garvey. 



Now, Isaiah Garvey was a man of considerable experience in the 

 taking of whales, having pursued the profession off the mainland 

 shore as well as from the first days on Nantucket, and he knew well 

 the habits of the beasts — how when cruising undisturbed they will 

 rise to blow gently three times in succession and then sound for a 

 longer period to swim along with their great mouths open, gathering 

 their huge quantities of tiny food. Therefore he felt confident that 

 this whale, even if a lone bull, would do Hkewise and almost imme- 

 diately come up again, perhaps right under the boat. But he was 

 quite wrong, because in the half-light and the confusion of his first 

 surprise, he had failed to observe properly even what he could see 

 of this whale. So he was as much taken by surprise as anybody when 



