STOVE. 229 



"He seemed to be an ugly tempered fellow, and 

 they sometimes come back to have a little re- 

 venge." 



"We laughed at this, and commenced pnEing 

 down toward the other boats, which we saw 

 about two miles off in a direction opposite to thai 

 which our whale had taken. 



Some fifteen minutes had elapsed, and we were 

 yet slowly pulling along, discussing our adventure, 

 when the boatsteerer suddenly shouted at the top 

 of his voice, 



" Pull hard ! pull hard ! there's a whale under 

 us!" 



Before this could be done in fact, before he had 

 fairly uttered his warning we heard a crash, and 

 felt the boat lifted up under us. In the next mo- 

 ment all but the mate and myself were thrown into 

 the water, and the boat was restored to her equi- 

 librium, half filled and leaking fast at every seam. 



The whale, which had struck beneath the tub- 

 oarsman's thwart, was now standing perpendicu- 

 larly in the water, with his jaw thrown wide open, 

 and his junk raised in the air. Thus he remained 

 for the space of a minute, seemingly waiting for 

 something to drop into his extended maw: then 

 resuming his horizontal position he once more 

 made off. 



Had the men been in the boat, the mate would 

 have fastened to him again, wrecked as we were 

 But there was no one to lay the boat's head roun^ 

 awd to have struck him from the stern would have 



