as
possible. And their weight necessitates a harpooner being chosen from
among the biggest and strongest men in the ship.

The harpoon blade is made like an arrow, but with only one barb, which
turns on a steel pivot. The point of the harpoon blade is ground as
sharp as a razor on one side and blunt on the other. The shaft is about
thirty inches long and made of the best soft iron so that it is
practically impossible to break it. Three irons were always placed in
our boat, fitted one above the other in the starboard bow. If the
harpooner missed with one iron, or if there was time to fling a second,
he could reach and get it handily.

In the old days the lances were slung in the port bow. It was with the
lance the whale was actually killed. The harpoon only serves to make the
boat fast to its prize. The lances were slender spears about four feet
long with broad points. The old-time whalemen were rowed right up to the
side of the ironed monster, after it had tired itself out fighting, and
the officer in the bow had to churn the lance up and down in the great
beast until the point reached a vital spot.

For this reason there were many more serious accidents in the old times
than now. In each boat belonging to the Scarboro there was stowed a
lance-gun in place of the lances. The bomb-lance is surer than the
old-time lance, and keeps the boat and crew farther from the seat of
peril.

I rose up as soon as we drove in near the big bull that we had been
approaching. And it _was_ a big fellow! I think it was as large a sperm
as we had seen. Its upper jaw and head was covered with lumps and scars
of old wounds. Along the flank was a half-healed, jagged gash, too.

"That old boy's collided with something," grumbled Tom Anderly in my
ear. "I believe he's a rogue."

I had heard of ancient, isolated he-elephants being called "rogue;" but
I did not know before that whalemen believe that certain old bull whales
are just as savage and revengeful as tigers. Indeed, among all wild
creatures--either on land or in the sea--there seem to be ancient bulls
that go off from their kind and sulk. They easily "run amuck"--perhaps
are really insane. To attack them is far more perilous than to attack a
herd of their normal fellows.

This old bull whale, however, had not deserted the society of his
fellows; but he proved to be as ugly a customer as we could have found
in all that school of three hundred or more sperms!

"He looks bad to me