it's like! Well, it's like a tremendous big bolster with a head
and a tail to it."

"And how big is it?"

"They're of all sizes, lad. I've seen one that was exactly equal to
three hundred fat bulls, and its rate of goin' would take it round the
whole world in twenty-three days."

"I don't believe you," said I, laughing.

"Don't you?" cried Tom; "it's a fact notwithstandin', for the captain
himself said so, and that's how I came to know it."

Just as Tom finished speaking, the man in the crow's nest roared at the
top of his voice, "There she blows!"

That was the signal that a whale was in sight, and as it was the first
time we had heard it that season, every man in the ship was thrown into
a state of tremendous excitement.

"There she blows!" roared the man again.

"Where away?" shouted the captain.

"About two miles right ahead."

In another moment the utmost excitement prevailed on board. Suddenly,
while I was looking over the side, straining my eyes to catch a sight of
the whale, which could not yet be seen by the men on deck, I saw a brown
object appear in the sea, not twenty yards from the side of the ship;
before I had time to ask what it was, a whale's head rose to the
surface, and shot up out of the water. The part of the fish that was
visible above water could not have been less than thirty feet in length.
It just looked as if our longboat had jumped out of the sea, and he was
so near that I could see his great mouth quite plainly. I could have
tossed a biscuit on his back easily. Sending two thick spouts of frothy
water out of his blow-holes forty feet into the air with tremendous
noise, he fell flat upon the sea with a clap like thunder, tossed his
flukes, or tail, high into the air, and disappeared.

I was so amazed at this sight that I could not speak. I could only
stare at the place where the huge monster had gone down.

"Stand by to lower," shouted the captain.

"Ay, ay, sir," replied the men, leaping to their appointed stations; for
every man in a whale-ship has his post of duty appointed to him, and
knows what to do when an order is given.

"Lower away," cried the captain, whose face was now blazing with
excitement.

In a moment more three boats were in the water; the tubs, harpoons,
etcetera, were thrown in, the men seized the oars, and away they went
with a cheer. I was in such a state of flutter that I scarce knew what
I did; but I managed somehow or other to get into a bo