256 THE OCEAN. 
boats, when they saw his first spout, was tremen: 
dous; they did not shout, but we could hear an agi- 
tated murmur from their united voices reverberating 
along the surface of the deep. They flew over the 
limpid waves at a rapid rate: the mates of the vari- 
ous boats cheered their respective crews by various 
urgent exclamations. ‘Swing on your oars, my 
boys, for the honour of the Henrietta!’ cried one; 
‘Spring away, hearties!’ shouted another; and yet 
scarcely able to breathe from anxiety and exertion; 
‘It’s our fish!’ vociferated a third, as he passed the 
rest of his opponents but a trifling distance. ‘Lay 
on, my boys!’ cried young Clark, our first mate, as 
he steered the boat with one hand and pressed down 
the after oar with the other: ‘she'll be ours yet; 
let’s have a strong pull, a long pull, and a pull 
all together! he exclaimed, as he paused from his 
exertions at the after oar, which soon brought up 
his boat quite abreast of the foremost. 
“But the giant of the Ocean, who was only a 
short distance before them, now appeared rather 
‘gallied,’ or frightened, having probably seen or 
heard the boats, and as he puffed up his spout to 
a great height, and reared his enormous head, he 
increased his speed, and went along quite as fast as 
the boats, but for only two or three minutes, when 
he appeared to get perfectly quiet again, while the 
boats gained rapidly upon him, and were soon close 
in his wake. ‘Stand up!’ cried young Clark to 
the harpooner, who is also the bow-oarsman; while 
the same order was instantly given by his opponent, 
whose boat was abreast of our mate’s with the rest 
