n the black depths, I perceived a
small, faint, glimmering patch of phosphorescence, that, as I looked,
grew larger and more distinct, until, in the course of a very few
seconds, it assumed the shape of another monster rising plumb underneath
us.

"Back water, men! back water, for your lives! There is one of them
coming up right under our keel!" I cried; and, at the words, the men
dashed their oars into the water and we backed out of the way, just in
time to avoid being hove out of the water and capsized, this fellow
happening to come up with something very like a rush. Meanwhile, others
were rising here and there all around us, until we found ourselves
surrounded by a school of between twenty and thirty whales. It was a
rather alarming situation for us; for although the creatures appeared
perfectly quiet and well-disposed, there was no knowing at what moment
one of them might gather way and run us down, either intentionally or
inadvertently; while there was also the chance that another might rise
beneath us so rapidly as to render it impossible for us to avoid him.
One of the men suggested that we should endeavour to frighten them away
by making a noise of some sort; but the former whaler strongly vetoed
this proposition, asserting--whether rightly or wrongly I know not--that
if we startled them the chances were that those nearest at hand would
turn upon us and destroy the boat. We therefore deemed it best to
maintain a discreet silence; and in this condition of unpleasant
suspense we remained, floating motionless for a full half-hour, the
whales meanwhile lying as motionless as ourselves, when suddenly a stir
seemed to thrill through the whole herd, and all in a moment they got
under way and went leisurely off in a northerly direction, to our great
relief. We gave them a full quarter of an hour to get well out of our
way, and then the oars dipped into the water once more, and we resumed
our voyage.

At daybreak the atmosphere was still as stagnant as it had been all
through the night, the surface of the ocean being unbroken by the
faintest ripple, save where, about a mile away, broad on our starboard
bow, the fin of a solitary shark lazily swimming athwart our course
turned up a thin, blue, wedge-shaped ripple as he swam. There was,
however, a faint, scarcely perceptible mistiness in the atmosphere that
led me to hope we might get a small breeze from somewhere--I little
cared where--before the day grew many h