174 THE WHALE AND 



Joy out of Despair. Light in the Darkness. 



see. But at the moment despair was firmly 

 settling upon us, a man from aloft cried out 

 that he could see a light right ahead of the 

 ship, just as we were " going about," by which 

 we should have gone from it. 



We all looked in that direction, and in a few 

 minutes we could plainly perceive it ; in a short 

 time we were close up with it, when, to our 

 great joy, we found the captain and all the men 

 in the boats, lying to the leeward of the dead 

 whale, which had in some measure saved them 

 from the violence of the sea. They had only 

 just been able to procure a light, having un- 

 fortunately upset all their tinder through the 

 violent motion of the boats, by which it became 

 wet, but which they succeeded in igniting after 

 immense application of the flint and steel, or 

 their lantern would have been suspended from 

 an oar directly after sunset, which is the usual 

 practice when boats are placed under such cir- 

 cumstances. 



After securing the whale alongside, which it 

 was feared they would lose during the night, 

 from the roughness of the weather, they all 

 came on board, when the sudden end of poor 

 Berry was spoken of with sorrow from all hands, 



