steersman gave him the harpoon right well into him. This made
him more savage, and he stood right for my boat, plowing up the sea as
he rushed on. I was all ready in the bow with the harpoon, and the men
were all ready with their oars to pull back, so as to keep clear of him.
On he came, and when his snout was within six feet of us we pulled sharp
across him; and as we went from him, I gave him the harpoon deep into
the fin. 'Starn all!' was the cry as usual, that we might be clear of
him. He 'sounded' immediately, that is, down he went, headforemost,
which was what we were afraid of, for you see we had only two hundred
fathoms of line in each boat; and having both harpoons in him, we could
not bend one to the other, in case he 'sounded' deep, for sometimes they
will go down right perpendicular, and take four lines, or eight hundred
fathoms, with them; so we expected that we should this time lose the
whale as well as our lines, for when they were run out we must either
cut or go down with him. Well, the lines ran out so swift that we poured
water on them that they might not fire--and we thought that it was all
over, for the lines were two-thirds out, and he was going down as fast
as ever, when all of a sudden he stopped. We were hauling in the slack
lines, when we saw him rise again, about a quarter of a mile off. It
was a hurrah, for we now thought that we had him. Off he set with his
nose up, right in the wind's eye, towing the two boats at the rate of
twelve miles an hour; our stems cleaving through the sea, and throwing
off the water like a plume of feathers on each side of the bows, while
the sun's rays pierced through the spray and formed bright rainbows. We
hoped soon to tire him, and to be able to haul in upon our lines, so as
to get near enough to give him our lances; but that was only hope, as
you'll hear. Of a sudden, he stopped, turned round, and made right for
us, with his jaws open; then, all we had to do was to balk him, and give
him the lance. He did not seem to have made up his mind which boat he
would attack--we were pretty near together, and he yawed at one, and
then at the other. At last he made right for the other boat, and the
boatsetter dodged him very cleverly, while we pulled up to him, and I
put the lance up to the stock into his side. He made a plunge as if he
were going to 'sound' again; and as he did so, with his flukes he threw
our boat into the air a matter of twenty feet, cutting it clean in