ABNERS WHALE. 73 



instead of simply tumbling about in an aimless, blind 

 sort of fury, to rush at the boat and try to destroy it. 

 Very few indeed would survive such an attack, unless 

 the tactics were radically altered. No doubt they would 

 be, for practices grow up in consequence of the circum- 

 stances with which they have to deal. 



After the usual time spent in furious attempts to free 

 himself from our annoyance, he betook himself below, 

 leaving us to await his return, and hasten it as much as 

 possible by keeping a severe strain upon the line. Our 

 efforts in this direction, however, did not seem to have 

 any effect upon him at all. Flake after flake ran out of 

 the tubs, until we were compelled to hand the end of our 

 line to the second mate to splice his own on to. Still it 

 slipped away, and at last it was handed to the third 

 mate, whose two tubs met the same fate. It was now 

 Mistah Jones' turn to " bend on," which he did with 

 many chuckles as of a man who was the last resource 

 of the unfortunate. But his face grew longer and lonffer 

 as the never-resting line continued to disappear. Soon 

 he signalled us that he was nearly out of line, and two 

 or three minutes after he bent on his " drogue " (a 

 square piece of plank with a rope tail spliced into its 

 centre, and considered to hinder a whale's progress at 

 least as much as four boats), and let go the end. We 

 had each bent on our drogues in the same way, when 

 we passed our ends to one another. So now our friend 

 was getting along somewhere below with 7200 feet of 

 l^-inch rope, and weight additional equal to the drag of 

 sixteen 30-feet boats. 



Of course we knew that, unless he were dead and 

 sinking, he could not possibly remain much longer 

 beneath the surface. The exhibition of endurance we 



