ed
to leeward the whale deliberately rammed her right under the forechains.

The concussion was terrible. The ship came to a dead stop, as if she
had run upon a rock, while the whale bumped along under the keel. Some
of those aboard were thrown to the deck. The masts quivered and
buckled under the shock, but fortunately nothing was carried away. The
onset was so unexpected that the men were dazed for a moment. When the
mate recovered his wits, he immediately sounded the well, and found
that the ship was leaking badly. He then ordered the men to the pumps,
and set signals for the recall of the boats, each of which had got fast
to a whale.

[Illustration: "The Ship Came to a Dead Stop"]

In spite of all they could do, the ship began settling rapidly by the
head. She was badly stove in, and making water fast. While some of
the men toiled at the pumps, others cleared away the extra boat. There
was no longer time to repair the other. At this juncture one of the
men discovered the same whale about two hundred and fifty fathoms to
leeward. He was in a fit of convulsive rage terrible to look upon;
leaping, turning, writhing, threshing about in the water, beating it
with his mighty tail and great flukes, thundering upon it with all his
force, and all the while opening and shutting his enormous jaws,
"smiting them together," in the words of the mate, as if distracted
with wrath and fury.

There was no time to watch the whale in the exigency of their peril,
and observing him start out with great velocity to cross the bows of
the ship to leeward, the men turned their attention to the more serious
duty at the pumps and the boat. But a few moments had {235} elapsed,
when another man forward observed the whale again.

[Illustration: "The Killing of Alexander Hamilton by Aaron Burr, at
Weehawken, New Jersey, July 11, 1804"]

"Here he is!" he shouted. "He's making for us again."

The great cachalot was now directly ahead, about two hundred fathoms
away, and coming down upon them with twice his ordinary speed. The
surf flew in all directions about him. "His course was marked by a
white foam a rod in width which he made with the continual thrashing of
this tail." His huge head, boneless but almost as solid and as hard as
the inside of a horse's hoof, most admirably designed for a
battering-ram, was almost half out of the water. The mate made one
desperate attempt to get out of his way. Again the helm was put up a