220 WHALING 



whale, Malloy, with all the strength of arms and body, drove the 

 lance to the socket, straight into the spot just behind the fin 

 that covers the ''life." 



The whale turned convulsively toward the boat, but the boat 

 had already shot ahead, free and clear. With thrashing flukes 

 and jaw, he flung himself out of water and fell from mid-air 

 on the cask, which bobbed out, unharmed, from under him. 

 Suddenly his clear spout flamed crimson. 



The men roared in triumph. 



The crimson flood darkened and thickened. The whale half- 

 breached, and threw himself round. He struck his flukes on the 

 sea, with reports as of cannon. He dashed first one way, then 

 another, filling the air with foam and clots of blood ; he went into 

 blind, futile paroxysms of rage, now growing weaker, now rush- 

 ing about in desperate spasms. 



In just twenty minutes he rolled fin out, and lay still. 



That afternoon the usual breeze came up and the ship sailed 

 into port; the boats tallied on to the whale and towed him to 

 the anchor ground. 



They cut in old Tom and boiled him down, and, to their sur- 

 prise, got only seventy-five barrels of oil instead of the hundred 

 they expected, which fact the bull's life of constant fighting 

 perhaps explains. They found in the blubber twenty or more 

 twisted and corroded harpoons. One of them, which had cut 

 through the orifice of the spiracle, had caused the peculiar form 

 of Tom's spouts. 



To the amazement of the whalemen, the inhabitants of Paita 

 were enraged that their whale was taken, and put out in make- 

 shift boats to shake their fists and spit angry oaths at the vessel. 

 Old Tom had come, in their minds, to be a sort of guardian of 

 the port, and they attributed to him their good fortune in having 

 no sharks in Paita Bay. But nevertheless they swarmed by 

 hundreds down from the dusty streets and lined the shore to see 

 the whale cut in, for even though they considered him as in a 

 manner their tutelary angel, the processes of disposing of his 

 blubber were strange and very interesting. 



It is said that George Sanford, Len's father, who was an old 



