THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 161 



The five work as a single hand under the direction of him 

 who is steering and throwing his whole standing force in 

 the push on the after-oar. Every energy of my soul and 

 body is centred in that bow-oar, and I do not differ from 

 four others who share in the excitement. An occasional 

 glance at my springing ash, the leaping little waves, and the 

 resolute face of the captain, tell me to a fathom the position 

 of the chase. His eyes are fixed on the rising and sinking 

 whale; color has left his features; his pale lips are drawn 

 tight as he sways back and forth to the stroke of the oar. 

 He, too, is straining on, and jerks out words of command, 

 exhortation, and promise, to urge our energies to fiercer effort. 



We are coming up at killing pace. The captain, eloquent, 

 unconscious of his words, yet with method in his frenzy, still 

 urges us on. Now the puff of a spout joins the splash of 

 the bow, and the old man's voice sinks to a fierce whisper 

 as he promises all his tobacco, a share in his little farm at 

 home, and his "lay" in the whale, as he adjures us to put 

 him on. Human muscle can not stand the strain much 

 longer ; the boat seems as lead ; boiling foam curls and bub- 

 bles around the boat's head. The old man glances almost 

 as low as the head of the boat; a puff is heard just under 

 the bows; my oar-blade dips in the eddying wake of the 

 whale's last upward stroke, and right under its blade I see 

 the broad half-moon of his flukes as we shoot across the cor- 

 ner of them. Now the odor of the whale, like a bank of sea- 

 weed, comes over us. " Stand up, Ben ! Pull, pull for life ! 

 Good, good ! Now again ! Goody Lord, give it to him !" 

 The backward start of the boat and the upward fling of the 

 flukes tell the rest of that story. A stroke or two astern, and 

 we pant for breath in safety. 



But lest the reader might labor under the mistake that 

 all our prizes are secured simply by the planting of the har- 

 poon, I shall skip from the present whale, which gave us lit- 

 tle trouble, to another. 



