LIBERTY DAY — AND AFTER. 173 



for if we let go our end, the others would be on the 

 whale immediately ; if we held on, we should certainly be 

 dragged below in a twinkling ; and our disengaged boats 

 could do nothing, for they had no line. But the difficulty 

 soon settled itself Out ran our end, leaving us bare of 

 line as pleasure skiffs. The new-comer, who had been 

 prowling near, keeping a close watch upon us, saw our 

 boat jump up when released from the weight. Off he 

 flew like an arrow to the labouring leviathan, now a 

 " free fish," except for such claims as the two first 

 comers had upon it, which claims are legally assessed, 

 where no dispute arises. In its disabled condition, 

 dragging so enormous a weight of line, it was but a few 

 minutes before the fresh boat was fast, while we looked 

 on helplessly, boiling with impotent rage. All that we 

 could now hope for was the salvage of some of our line, 

 a mile and a half of which, inextricably mixed up with 

 about the same length of our rival's, was towing astern of 

 the fast-expiring cachalot. 



So great had been the strain upon that hardly-used 

 animal that he did not go into his usual " flurry," but 

 calmly expired without the faintest struggle. In the 

 mean time two of our boats had been sent on board 

 again to work the ship, while the skipper proceeded to 

 try his luck in the recovery of his gear. On arriving at 

 the dead whale, however, we found that he had rolled 

 over and over beneath the water so many times that 

 the line was fairly frapped round him, and the present 

 possessors were in no mood to allow us the privilege of 

 unrolling it. 



During the conversation we had drawn very near the 



carcass, so near, in fact, that one hand was holding the 



boat alongside the whale's " small " by a bight of 

 13 



