36 Autobiography of a Sperm Whale 



sprang to the surface and awaited his coming. As soon 

 as he appeared I rained blows upon him with my tail 

 until all motion on his part ceased, and he lay, except 

 for the gentle wash of the waves about his limp body, 

 quite supine. I immediately mustered the school, gave 

 the signal of command, and in a compact body we all 

 sped away, leaving our late chief to enter into a new 

 sphere of usefulness in the bodies of the myriad scaven- 

 gers of the sea already hastening to the enormous 

 banquet I had spread for them. 



Thenceforward I led the school triumphantly 

 through the various oceans for many years. But I 

 never allowed a young bull to linger when it was time 

 that he should go. If he refused the combat I would 

 drive him out ; I would have no one wait for me as I did 

 for my chief, although I had little to fear, for I had 

 become even a mightier monarch than he, and wiser by 

 far, I knew. Yet never did I get an opportunity to 

 show my wisdom's ripest fruitage until one day off the 

 old Solander again, where I first felt the touch of that 

 horrible barbed weapon : I knew that there were 

 enemies about. I ordered all my tribe to make full 

 speed to the westward, while I remained to guard their 

 retreat ; and wonderfully they obeyed me. In the 

 space of three spouts they had disappeared, gliding 

 along beneath the sea at top speed. I lay as if asleep, 

 but by an almost imperceptible motion of my flukes 

 gradually turning, turning, so that when three of the 

 white monsters I remembered so well rushed upon me, 

 I, seeing them coming, suddenly turned a full somersault 

 and fell among them. One was crushed to fragments, 

 the other two strove to escape, but I hurled myself 

 after them, as the dolphin after the flying-fish, and 

 presently they had both fallen into morsels under my 

 furious blows. Then, calming down at once, I followed 



