290 



Out of /lie 



So we gave up trying to name these mon- 

 sters of the abyss with names sufficiently 

 uncouth to be scientific, and brought back 

 the crew to life by lowering a boat to see 

 what kind of squid or fish or tiny mollusk 

 they were eating. For we had been told 

 that, in certain species, the throat of one of 

 these huge whales is so small that a pippin 

 would choke him. 



Soon the sporting interest awoke. One 

 who knew the whalemen well talked of har- 

 poons and ambergris, and told the story of 

 the Nantucket ship that had been charged, 

 and battered and sunk, by a fighting old 

 bull. Whereupon the grizzled fisherman of 

 St. Barbes put in with an account of what he 

 had seen last summer, when a whale blun- 

 dered into the fishermen's nets during a 

 storm. Three days he lay in the trap; now 

 pushing his head into a net and drawing 

 back in afright at the queer thing; now 

 breaching clear of the water to see if there 

 were any way out, and falling back heavily 

 again as if discouraged in his quest. Then 

 he evidently made up what he would call his 



