UNCOMFORTABLY NEAR BEING THE LAST. 177 



was light, with a cloudless sky, and the whale was 

 dead to leeward of us. We sped along at a good rate 

 towards our prospective victim, who was, in his leisurely 

 enjoyment of life, calmly lolling on the surface, occasion- 

 ally lifting his enormous tail out of water and letting it 

 fall flat upon the surface with a boom audible for miles. 



We were, as usual, first boat ; but, much to the mate's 

 annoyance, when we were a short half-mile from the 

 whale, our main-sheet parted. It became immediately 

 necessary to roll the sail up, lest its flapping should alarm 

 the watchful monster, and this delayed us sufficiently to 

 allow the other boats to shoot ahead of us. Thus the 

 second mate got fast some seconds before we arrived on 

 the scene, seeing which we furled sail, unshipped the 

 mast, and went in on him with the oars only. At first 

 the proceedings were quite of the usual character, our 

 chief wielding his lance in most brilliant fashion, while 

 not being fast to the animal allowed us much greater 

 freedom in our evolutions ; but that fatal habit of the 

 mate's — of allowing his boat to take care of herself so 

 long as he was getting in some good home-thrusts— once 

 more asserted itself. Although the whale was exceed- 

 ingly vigorous, churning the sea into yeasty foam over 

 an enormous area, there we wallowed close to him, right 

 in the middle of the turmoil, actually courting disaster. 



He had just settled down for a moment, when, 

 glancing over the gunwale, I saw his tail, like a vast 

 shadow, sweeping away from us towards the second 

 mate, who was laying off the other side of him. Before 

 I had time to think, the mighty mass of gristle leapt 

 into the sunshine, curved back from us like a huge 

 bow. Then with a roar it came at us, released from 

 its tension of Heaven knows how many tons. Full on 



