some distance off the east coast
of those islands. My hope of finding Jack decreased, but didn't die
away altogether.

Jim kept me up. "We don't know in what direction the boat went," he
observed. "She may have steered to the northward, and we are as likely
to fall in with him the way we're going as anywhere else."

I often consulted the chart. To the northward of Strong's Island I saw
the Caroline group, consisting of a vast number of coral islands, and
north-west of them, again, the Ladrone Islands, the principal of which,
Guam, is inhabited by Spaniards. Knowing this, Captain Barber may have
attempted to reach it, and one day, to my satisfaction, I heard from the
doctor that Captain Hawkins intended to call there before returning
home.

We were now leaving those islands I have mentioned to the southward. We
were very successful on the Japan ground, and nearly completed our
cargo, at least the lower hold was full.

At length, one calm day, a large whale was seen spouting at some
distance from the ship. Four boats were lowered. The captain, the two
mates, and Brown went in them, Miles Soper going as the chief mate's
boat-steerer. His boat was the first up, and in a short time Soper put
two irons into the whale, which almost instantly turned over on its
back, threw its lower jaw open, and nipped her clean in two.

Wonderful to relate, the men all got clear, and Mr Griffiths, standing
up on half of the boat, plunged his lance right down the whale's throat,
and then jumped off and swam with the other men to the next boat coming
up. The captain's boat now fastened to the whale, which, turning as
before on its back, treated her in the way it had the first. When we
who were on board saw this, we began to lower the spare boats as fast as
we could. While we were thus employed, the doctor, who was looking on,
exclaimed--

"There's a third boat caught!"

And we saw that the second mate's boat, which had got up, had been
nipped by the whale. Brown's boat, the fourth, now pulled gallantly up,
watching every movement of the monster, if necessary to get out of its
way; but the wound it had received had already weakened it, and though
it made at his boat he escaped, and succeeded in plunging several
harpoons and lances into its body.

Meanwhile the crews of the other boats which had been destroyed had been
hanging on to them, and though the sea was swarming with sharks it was a
remarkable fact that not one of