ot too soared to even try to haul up and give
him a bomb, let alone giving him the lance--which was easy enough."

Just as he spoke, one of the boatsteerers entered the cabin and reported
that some of the hands thought that they had heard the second mate's
bomb gun.

"All right," growled Keller, "tell the cooper to burn a flare."

"I guess Frewen won't lose him," said Lopez, the first mate. "He told
me long ago that he never yet had to out, and I don't think he'll do it
now--unless something has gone wrong. That must have been his gun."

"Huh!" sneered Keller, as he viciously speared a piece of salt pork with
his fork, "we'll see all about that when daylight comes. You'll find Mr.
Firwen and that yaller-hided Samoa buck back here for breakfast, but no
whale."

None of the men made any reply. They knew that Frewen would be the
last man to lose a fish through any fault of his own, and only after
carefully "drogueing" his line would he part company with it, and that
only if the immense creature emptied the line tubs and "sounded." Then,
to save the lives of those in the boat, he would have to cut.

"Guess we'll see that whale to-morrow, anyway, whether Mr. Frewen is
fast to him or not," said the third mate to the cooper, as they met on
deck; "he's got a mighty lot of line hanging to him, and, just after the
second mate got fast I saw him shaking his flukes and trying to kick out
one of the two irons the mate hove into him."

"Well, that is so; I hope we shall get him. The old man is pretty cranky
over it. He hasn't a nice temper even when he's in a good humour, and
there will be blue fire blazing if Mr. Frewen does lose the fish after
all."

For four hours the barque made short tacks to the eastward, in which
direction the boat had been taken by the whale. The night was fine but
dark, the sea very smooth, and the flares which were burnt at intervals
on board the barque would render her visible many miles away, and a keen
look-out was kept for the boat, but nothing could be discovered of it.

Towards midnight the light air from the eastward died away, and was
succeeded by a series of rather sharp rain squalls from the south-west,
and Keller, fearing to miss the boat by running past her, hove-to till
daylight.

The dawn broke brightly, with a dead calm. Forty pairs of eyes eagerly
scanned the surface of the ocean, and in a few minutes there came a
cheering cry from aloft.

"Dead whale, oh! Close to on the weathe