witchery that is more or less shared by all regions of low latitudes.

Our two Sea Lions met with no adventures worthy of record, until they got
well to the southward of the equator. They had been unusually successful
in getting through the calm latitudes; and forty-six days from Montauk,
they spoke a Sag Harbour whaler, homeward bound, that had come out from
Rio only the preceding week, where she had been to dispose of her oil. By
this ship, letters were sent home; and as Gardiner could now tell the
deacon that he should touch at Rio even before the time first anticipated,
he believed that he should set the old man's heart at peace. A little
occurrence that took place the very day they parted with the whaler, added
to the pleasure this opportunity of communicating with the owner had
afforded. As the schooners were moving on in company, about a cable's
length asunder, Hazard saw a sudden and extraordinary movement on board
the Vineyard Lion, as the men now named that vessel, to distinguish her
from her consort.

"Look out for a spout!" shouted the mate to Stimson, who happened to be on
the foretopsail-yard at work; when this unexpected interruption to the
quiet of the passage occurred. "There is a man overboard from the other
schooner, or they see a spout."

"A spout! a spout!" shouted Stimson, in return; "and a spalm (sperm, or
spermaceti, was meant) whale, in the bargain! Here he is, sir, two p'ints
on our weather beam."

This was enough. If any one has had the misfortune to be in a coach drawn
by four horses, when a sudden fright starts them off at speed, he can form
a pretty accurate notion of the movement that now took place on board of
Deacon Pratt's craft. Every one seemed to spring into activity, as if a
single will directed a common set of muscles. Those who were below
literally "tumbled up," as seamen express it, and those who were aloft
slid down to the deck like flashes of lightning. Captain Gardiner sprang
out of his cabin, seemingly at a single bound; at another, he was in the
whale-boat that Hazard was in the very act of lowering into the water, as
the schooner rounded-to. Perceiving himself anticipated here, the mate
turned to the boat on the other quarter, and was in her, and in the water,
almost as soon as his commanding officer.

Although neither of the schooners was thoroughly fitted for a whaler, each
had lines, lances, harpoons, &c., in readiness in their quarter-boats,
prepared for any turn o