like a chip in a whirlpool. Blinded by the flying spray, baling for very
life to free the boat from the water, with which she was nearly full, it
was some minutes before I was able to decide whether we were still
uninjured or not. Then I saw, at a little distance, the whale lying
quietly. As I looked he spouted and the vapor was red with his blood.
'Starn all!' again cried our chief, and we retreated to a considerable
distance. The old warrior's practised eye had detected the coming climax
of our efforts, the dying agony, or 'flurry,' of the great mammal. Turning
upon his side, he began to move in a circular direction, slowly at first,
then faster and faster, until he was rushing round at tremendous speed,
his great head raised quite out of water at times, slashing his enormous
jaws. Torrents of blood poured from his spout-hole, accompanied by hoarse
bellowings, as of some gigantic bull, but really caused by the laboring
breath trying to pass through the clogged air-passages. The utmost caution
and rapidity of manipulation of the boat was necessary to avoid his
maddened rush, but this gigantic energy was short-lived. In a few minutes
he subsided slowly in death, his mighty body reclined on one side, the fin
uppermost waving limply as he rolled to the swell, while the small waves
broke gently over the carcass in a low, monotonous surf, intensifying the
profound silence that had succeeded the tumult of our conflict with the
late monarch of the deep."

[Illustration: "SUDDENLY THE MATE GAVE A HOWL--'STARN ALL!'"]

Not infrequently the sperm-whale, breaking loose from the harpoon, would
ignore the boats and make war upon his chief enemy--the ship. The history
of the whale fishery is full of such occurrences. The ship "Essex," of
Nantucket, was attacked and sunk by a whale, which planned its campaign
of destruction as though guided by human intelligence. He was first seen
at a distance of several hundred yards, coming full speed for the ship.
Diving, he rose again to the surface about a ship's length away, and then
surged forward on the surface, striking the vessel just forward of the
fore-chains. "The ship brought up as suddenly and violently as if she had
struck a rock," said the mate afterward, "and trembled for few seconds
like a leaf." Then she began to settle, but not fast enough to satisfy the
ire of the whale. Circling around, he doubled his speed, and bore down
upon the "Essex" again. This time his head fairly stove