240 NIMHOD OF THE SEA; OR, 



a contest, until my life is their life, and my will is their will, 

 I am all in all. The very boat is part of me. I talk to 

 myself, and five souls respond in the quick stroke of the oar. 

 The cloven, bubbling sea flits beneath me. The fleeing whale 

 rises and sinks. My eye alone drinks in the grand sight and 

 diffuses the excitement to my men. Foot by foot we draw 

 on our game, and my energy bends the supple oar like the 

 bow of the archer. Two silver crowns yet lay between us ; 

 the music of the spout comes through the light rush of the 

 boat, and the wild scent of a strange breath touches our 

 dilating nostrils. The blood is on fire with the madness of 

 the moment. The whale will spout but a few times, and we 

 shall lose him forever. Now, my merry men, for him ! We 

 spring all; we leap from the crest to the valley; we fly in 

 a milky way through the boiling eddies of his monstrous ef- 

 fort. Now the corner of his waving flukes gleam azure be- 

 neath the boat. Another mighty effort; the whale glides 

 beneath us. Stand up, and take him as he rises ! pull for 

 dear life ! steady ! Now give it to him ! With hissing 

 plunge, the keen iron pierces the rising game ; an instant 

 the breath is held for the cut of the flukes. Amidst spray 

 and foam the boat is backed from the dangei', and an 

 eighty-foot whale whirls the line from the tub, until the log- 

 gerhead is lost in the smoke of burning wood. 



This is royal sport which a wild democracy may love. In 

 this supreme moment the hunter is uppermost, and few men 

 then count the value of the oil, be it measured in pennies or 

 human lives. My teeth are deep set in the huge flank of 

 our gigantic prey, and we will not calculate the dollars until 

 blood returns to a level with arithmetic. Only a dream yet ! 

 Only a dream, interrupted by the captain's voice which 

 awakened me to the conversation. 



Captain West seemed to think that voyages were length- 

 ened by the wildness of whales, rather than by their scarcity ! 



