76 A YEAR WITH A WHALER 



" Call all hands and clear away the boats," 

 yelled the captain. 



Larboard and waist boats were lowered from 

 the davits. Their crews scrambled over the ship's 

 side, the leg-o'-mutton sails were hoisted, and the 

 boats, bending over as the wind caught them, 

 sped away on the chase. The Night King went 

 as boatsteerer of the waist boat. I saw him 

 smiling to himself as he shook the kinks out of his 

 tub-line and laid his harpoons in position in the 

 bows — harpoons with no bomb-guns attached to 

 the spear-shanks. 



In the distance, a slow succession of fountains 

 gleamed in the brilliant tropical sunshine like 

 crystal lamps held aloft on fairy pillars. Sud- 

 denly the tell-tale beacons of spray went out. 

 The whale had sounded. Over the sea, the boats 

 quartered like baffled foxhounds to pick up the 

 lost trail. 



Between the ship and the boats, the whale 

 came quietly to the surface at last and lay per- 

 fectly still, taking its ease, sunning itself and 

 spouting lazily. The captain, perched in the 

 ship's cross-trees, signalled its position with flags, 



