BRINGING MR. TOWNSEND BACK AGAIN. 71 



The boat-steerer's mouth was half-open with 

 expectancy — and behold ! Almost against our 

 boat, and just awash of the surface, the monstrous 

 black bulk of the whale ! He stretched huge and 

 dim under water. Only part of him could be 

 seen. A slanting column of hot white vapor stood 

 up ten feet tall, like a rakish mast. It was the 

 whale's spout. 



When the mate's lance had been sent into the 

 whale's vitals, the boat dashed away from the 

 monster, and I got my first good view of him. 

 He was cutting and thrashing like a cat in a fit. 

 The water all round him was crimson. Jets of 

 thick, cloggy blood — a hogsheadful at each jet — 

 leaped six feet high from his spout-hole. Then 

 gradually the jets grew feebler. Then the blood 

 merely poured out. Then the whale took a swift, 

 wide circle against the sun, threw his whole mass 

 out of water, breaching; fell on his side with 

 a hideous, wallowing splash ; stuck one fin up, 

 quivering ; dropped his huge, ivory- toothed jaw, 

 and lay dead, in a lather of blood and foam ! 



An involuntary yell of triumph went up simul- 

 taneously from all three boats. 



We rowed up to the whale, and before we 

 attached our tow-rope, the mate ran his lance into 

 the whale's eye to make sure the life was all gone 



