e. When a whale thus leaps his whole length out of
the water, the sailors say he "breaches", and breaching is a common
practice. They seem to do it often for amusement as well as from
terror.

But the most deadly of the three enemies is the killer. This is itself
a kind of small whale, but it is wonderfully strong, swift, and bold.
When one of the killers gets into the middle of a school of whales, the
frightened creatures are seen flying in all directions. His mode of
attack is to seize his big enemy by the jaw, and hold on until he is
exhausted and dies.

CHAPTER VII

TOM'S WISDOM--ANOTHER GREAT BATTLE

One day I was standing beside the windlass, listening to the
conversation of five or six of the men, who were busy sharpening
harpoons and cutting-knives, or making all kinds of toys and things out
of whales' bones. We had just finished cutting in and trying out our
third whale, and as it was not long since we reached the
fishing-ground, we were in high hopes of making a good thing of it that
season; so that everyone was in good spirits, from the captain down to
the youngest man in the ship.

Tom Lokins was smoking his pipe, and Tom's pipe was an uncommonly black
one, for he smoked it very often. Moreover, Tom's pipe was uncommonly
short, so short that I always wondered how he escaped burning the end
of his nose. Indeed, some of the men said that the redness of the end
of Tom's nose was owing to its being baked like a brick by the heat of
his pipe. Tom took this pipe from his mouth, and while he was pushing
down the tobacco with the end of his little finger, he said:

"D'ye know, lads, I've been thinkin'----"

"No, have ye?" cried one of the men, interrupting him with a look of
pretended surprise. "Well now, I do think, messmates, that we should
ax the mate to make a note o' that in the log, for it's not often that
Tom Lokins takes to thinkin'."

There was a laugh at this, but Tom, turning with a look of contempt to
the man who interrupted him, replied:

"I'll tell you wot it is, Bill Blunt, if all the thoughts that _you_
think, and especially the jokes that you utter, wos put down in the
log, they'd be so heavy that I do believe they would sink the ship!"

"Well, well," cried Bill, joining in the laugh against himself, "if
they did, _your_ jokes would be so light and triflin' that I do believe
they'd float her again. But what have you been a-thinkin' of, Tom?"

"I've been thinkin'," said