264 The Story of the New England Whalers 



"We jumped the boat ahead and darted two 

 irons, which started him off at a high speed to 

 windward, and the people on the ship told us after- 

 ward that we literally skipped from one sea to the 

 next. All we were conscious of was the fact that 

 the boat simply rested on her keel and the spray 

 flew over us in great sheets. 



"At last he slacked up and gave us a chance 

 to put in a bomb lance. He made a rush to lee- 

 ward, to where we had left the dead whale, 

 straight as a die and right over him, dragging 

 us over, too, of course, all the time spouting blood. 

 Then he dove under us and came up with his 

 blow-hole right under the nose of the mate, who 

 was looking over the side for him, and he got the 

 spout of thick blood right in the face at less than 

 a yard distance. Of course it spattered all of us, 

 and when we hauled alongside with our two 

 whales we all looked as much like murderers as 

 anything else." 



More men lost their lives through the flying 

 harpoon line than in any other way. As the 

 sounding whale dragged out the line a coil very 

 often caught around a man's body or limb and 



