294 The Story of the New England Whalers 



that kept all her boats busy for nine hours. Dur- 

 ing that time it was struck by five harpoons, and 

 seven bombs were exploded in it; yet it destroyed 

 three boats, meantime, and then, when it was 

 at last killed, it sank in forty fathoms of water 

 and the crew got nothing for their labor. 



More extraordinary still was the experience 

 of Captain Malloy, of the Osceola 3d, of New 

 Bedford. The waist boat and the captain's 

 boat were lowered for a lone bull. Both struck 

 the whale, which in turn stove in both of the boats. 

 A sweep of its tail cut the bottom out of the 

 captain's boat; the other boat was merely crushed. 

 The waist boat, in the meantime, had fired a 

 bomb into the whale, but without any effect 

 whatever, so far as the men could see. 



As all hands had been thrown into the water 

 by the attack of the whale, the ship had to come 

 and pick them up. When this had been done 

 Captain Malloy headed the ship toward the whale 

 and stood, gun in hand, ready to fire a bomb 

 as soon as a convenient range should be reached. 

 It was supposed that the whale would be so busy 

 crushing the fragments of the broken boats that 



