THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 75 



the sperm-whale. As the daylight revealed a sail to wind- 

 ward, the captain, thinking the neighborhood too populous, 

 ordered, " Up with your helm, and square in the yards," 

 and we ran off to leeward. At 8 A.M. we raised sperm- 

 whale on the starboard beam, luffed to the wind, and at 9 

 lowered away all four boats. After a long following to lee- 

 ward for twenty miles, the mate and second mate got iron 

 into a fine bull whale. After a fierce struggle, he ran out 

 one line and wrenched out the irons of the other, then com- 

 ing to windward head out. The tw r o unfortunate boats 

 made desperate efforts to overhaul the flying game, but the 

 whale made two miles to their one, and we should have lost 



him but for a favorite mano3uvre of Captain B , who lay 



well to windward for just such flying chances. We worked 

 across so as to intercept the whale's course, and with sails 

 and oars we stood directly in a line with his great square 

 snout, which was thrown eight feet in the air at every spout. 

 Tugging away at the bow-oar, I had no share in the sport 

 until his great black head rushed into sight just outside my 

 oar-blade, and his polished, glistening body rounded out as 

 we swiftly passed. A slight backward check of the boat 

 told that Chipman was at work, and two planted iron poles 

 under the hump told us that we were fast. The thundering 

 flaps of the whale's flukes, and the quantity of white foam 

 and spray, are all I can recall of the instant preceding the 

 rapid whirl of the boat, as it swung to the tow of the line, 

 and followed the mad \vhale. Long John, midship oars- 

 man, a little white about the gills, was disposed to be funny, 

 and in a rather tremulous voice remarked that "his quid 

 was shifted to the wrong side by the sudden jerk, and that 

 was the reason he didn't trim the boat,'* The fact is, John, 

 with some others of our crew, thought it was in order to 

 jump overboard as soon as the irons were in the whale. 

 But, on the whole, we did creditably, and Captain B had 



