THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 195 



against him. He got rid of the line, as he thought, and had 

 got a breath of the blessed air and a glance at God's sun- 

 light, when he was jerked out of the sight of his horrified 

 shipmates. A bight of the line, yet attached to the sound- 

 ing whale, was around his ankle, and he bid good-bye to 

 this world as he was plunging into the deep sea. Yet he 

 was alert to take instant advantage of a slack in the speed 

 of the whale. Drawing himself forward by the line, with 

 his sheath-knife he severed the cord beyond the entangled 

 foot, and rose to the surface, exhausted by the time he had 

 been under and the lacerating wounds inflicted by the tight- 

 strained line. The boats picked him up. No one on board 

 knew any more of surgery than he did. So, with help from 

 willing but unskilled hands, the broken ankle was patched 

 up after a fashion, and kind Nature healed it, with the bones 

 unshipped and out of place, leaving him nearly as good a 

 man as he was before his awful plunge. 

 * " Another instance of wonderful preservation from a cru- 

 el death by the line occurred in his experience many years 

 after this, and goes to show how the whaleman is educated 

 to perform, and inured to suffer in the stern vicissitudes 

 of the chase. By some mishap the line kinked in the boat, 

 and a man was. caught and jerked from the boat by the 

 running whale. After being drawn with frightful speed 

 some one hundred and twenty-five fathoms from the boat, 

 he was released by his limbs giving way to the strain. 

 Thus freed, and almost unconscious, he rose to the surface 

 and was picked up and" carried on board the ship. On ex- 

 amination, it was found that* a portion of the hand, includ- 

 ing four fingers, had been torn away, and the foot sawed 

 through at the ankle, leaving only the great tendon and the 

 heel suspended to the lacerated stump. From the knee 

 downward the muscular flesh had been rasped away by the 

 line, leaving the protruding bone enveloped in a tangled 



