n't want to go. I don't want to lay on my dyin' bed an' think that
I'm the man that killed the last whale in the world. I'm commandin' this
vessel, and I sail it wherever Mr. Gibbs tells me to sail it; but if he
wants the bones of a whale to take home as a curiosity, an' tells me to
sail this vessel after that whale, I won't do it."

"I'm with you there," said Sammy. "I have been thinkin' while you was
talkin', an' it's my opinion that it's not only the last whale in the
world, but it's purty nigh tame. I believe it's so glad to see some
other movin' creature in this lonely sea that it wants to keep company
with us all the time. No, sir, I wouldn't have anything to do with
killin' that fish!"

The opinions of the captain and Sammy were now communicated to the rest
of the company on board, and nearly all of them thought that they had
had such an idea themselves. The whale certainly looked very familiar
every time he showed himself.

To Mr. Gibbs this lonely creature, if he were such, now became an object
of intense interest. It was evidently a specimen of the right-whale,
once common in the Northern seas, skeletons of which could be seen in
many museums. Nothing would be gained to science by his capture, and Mr.
Gibbs agreed with the others that it would be a pity to harm this, the
last of his race.

In thinking and talking over the matter Mr. Gibbs formed a theory which
he thought would explain the presence of this solitary whale in the
polar sea. He thought it very likely that it had gotten under the ice
and had pursued its northern journey very much as the Dipsey had pursued
hers, and had at last emerged, as she had, into the polar sea at a place
perhaps as shallow as that where the submarine vessel came out from
under the ice.

"And if that's the case," said Captain Hubbell, "it is ten to one that
he has not been able to get out again, and has found himself here
caught just as if he was in a trap. Fishes don't like to swim into tight
places. They may do it once, but they don't want to do it again. It is
this disposition that makes 'em easy to catch in traps. I believe you
are right, Mr. Gibbs. I believe this whale has got in here and can't get
out--or, at least, he thinks he can't--and nobody knows how long it's
been since he first got in. It may have been a hundred years ago.
There's plenty o' little fish in these waters for him to eat, and he's
the only one there is to feed."

The thought that in this polar