324 TEE CRUISE OF TEE " CACHALOT" 



was being lanced with all the vigour we possessed. 

 He just took all our assaults with perfect quietude 

 and exemi^lary patience, so that we could hardly help 

 regarding him with great suspicion, suspecting some deep 

 scheme of deviltry hidden by this abnormally sheep-like 

 demeanour. But nothing happened. In the same 

 peaceful way he died, without the slightest struggle 

 sufficient to raise even an eddy on the almost smooth sea. 



Leaving the mate by the carcass, we returned on 

 board, the skipper hailing us immediately on our arrival 

 to know what was the matter with him. We, of course, 

 did not know, neither did the question trouble us. All 

 we were concerned about was the magnanimous way in 

 which he, so to speak, made us a j)resent of himself, 

 giving us no more trouble to secure his treasure than aa 

 if he had been a lifeless thing. We soon had him 

 alongside, finding, upon ranging him by the ship, that 

 he was over seventy feet long, with a breadth of bulk 

 quite in j)roportion to such a vast length. 



Cutting in commenced at once, for fine weather 

 there was by no means to be wasted, being of rare 

 occurrence and liable at the shortest notice to be 

 succeeded by a howling gale. Our latest acquisition, 

 however, was of such gigantic proportions that the 

 decapitation alone bade fair to take us all night. A 

 nasty cross swell began to get up, too — a combination of 

 north-westerly and south-westerly which, meeting at an 

 angle where the Straits began, raised a curious " jobble," 

 making the vessel behave in a drunken, uncertain 

 manner. Sailors do not mind a ship rolling or pitching, 

 any more than a rider minds the motion of his horse ; but 

 when she does both at once, with no approach to regularity 

 in her movements, it makes them feel angry with her. 

 What, then, must our feelings have been under such 



