er dirty up
to windward. The Captain said we must shake a leg with the trying-out.

"'Boys,' says he, 'we got to boil this oil with stu'ns'ls set, because
before we get it done we'll be under a close-reefed maintops'l.'

"Well, bless you, he hadn't much more than got the words out of his
mouth than the mast-head fellow lets out a yell:

"'There she blows! And there she breaches!'

"Now it wouldn't make any difference to a whaler if he thought the world
was a-going to come to an end in ten minutes, he'd lower away if he saw
a spout. So the Captain gave orders for two boats to get under way in
chase of the new whales. One of the boats was the one I belonged to, and
the next thing I knew I was sitting on my thwart. The sail was hoisted,
and we went scudding down to leeward at a rattling gait. Say, it wasn't
altogether agreeable to sit in that boat and notice the width and height
of the sea that was getting up. But we soon forgot all about it in the
excitement of going on.

"'It's a-going to be a tough job getting this whale alongside,' says one
of the crew.

"'Wait till we get him first,' says Bacon.

"Well, it was our chance, and Bacon slung the iron into him with a vim.
Up went flukes and down went whale. He soon came up and began to swim to
windward at a fearful speed. The seas thundered against the bow of our
boat, and great sheets of water came tumbling inboard.

"'Bale there, bale!' yelled Bacon, 'or the boat'll fill and sink!'

"You can bet we didn't need to be told twice. We hadn't fairly got
started when the whale sounded, and we could tell by the trend of the
line that he was coming back toward the boat.

"'Look out!' shouted Bacon.

"The next second the brute shot clear out of the water not fifty feet
off the starboard beam of our boat, and raised such a wave when he fell
back into the sea that he nearly swamped us.

"'For goodness' sake," says one of the men, 'cut the line and let him
go.'

"'We'll never get back to the ship alive,' says another; 'look at the
sea. It's blowing a gale.'

"Well, it was blowing in a bit of a squall just then, but Bacon's blood
was up, and he was bound to have that whale.

"'Pull me up to him!' he shouted.

"We obeyed orders, and Bacon drove the lance right into his life.

"'Starn all!' he yelled, and we didn't get out of the way a second too
quick, for the monster went into his flurry, and beat the sea into an
acre of foam with his immense flukes. However, the