le dived or not.

But the bull didn't dive, and Tom swung the axe. His quick stroke
severed the line and every man in our boat was awake to the impending
catastrophe. Stroke sprang for the long steering oar. The rapid swing of
it barely swerved the heavy boat out of the course of sure disaster.

On went the released whale. Plumb his head smashed against the hull of
the big bark. The collision was a most awful shock. Consider a heavy
train pushing a mogul locomotive down grade ahead of it, and the whole
thing ramming another train--the result could have been no more awful.

The three-inch plank of which the vessel's side was made splintered like
the thinnest veneer. The ends of big timbers in her hull were ground to
pulp and matchwood. With a terrific splash of his tail, the fighting
whale rolled over, after rebounding from the bark, and lay, seemingly
stunned!

The bark, driven over almost on her beam ends, righted slowly. We knew
the whale must be as good as dead, but we had no thought for him then.
The smashing of the Scarboro might mean torture and death to every man
of her crew. We were out of the track of general steamship routes, and
far, far from land. If the bark sank, we were done for!

CHAPTER XXI

IN WHICH THE WAVECREST SETS SAIL AGAIN

Nobody gave any further thought to the whale. My own eyes were set upon
that yawning wound in the hull of the old Scarboro. After the shock of
the collision the bark righted slowly, and when she did so the sea
rushed into the hole in a most awful fashion.

We rowed rapidly toward the bark and made fast to the hoisting tackle.
We had a sling let down for the second mate, who was still unconscious.
Before we got him on the deck and got aboard ourselves, Captain Rogers
had all hands remaining aboard at work to stop the dreadful leak.

Had all six of the boats been out at this time I fully believe the
Scarboro would have gone to the bottom. Or, if there had been any sea to
speak of, she would have gone down inside of two hours.

But being right on the job, as you might say, Captain Hi lost few
seconds in the work of seeking to save the bark--and, incidentally, all
hands. He did not even take the time to see how badly his nephew was
hurt just then. As our crew came over the rail he set them to work, too.

"Take poor Ben below and let cookee do what he can for him," he bawled
to me. "I want you to deck here, Webb."

There was a light breeze, and he had some canv