he only exception he seems to make is in the case of man. Instances
have several--nay, many times occurred where men have been slain by the
jaws of a cachalot crushing the boat in which they were; but their death
was of course incidental to the destruction of the boat. Never, as far
as I have been able to ascertain, has a cachalot attacked a man swimming
or clinging to a piece of wreckage, although such opportunities occur
innumerably. I have in another place told the story of how I once saw a
combat between a bull-cachalot and so powerful a combination of enemies
that even one knowing the fighting qualities of the sperm whale would
have hesitated to back him to win, but the yarn will bear repetition.

Two "killers" and a sword-fish, all of the largest size. Description of
these warriors is superfluous, since they are so well known to museums
and natural histories; but unless one has witnessed the charge of
a XIPHIAS, he cannot realize what a fearful foe it is. Still, as a
practice, these creatures leave the cachalot respectfully alone, knowing
instinctively that he is not their game. Upon this memorable occasion,
however I guess the two ORCAS were starving, and they had organized
a sort of forlorn hope with the XIPHIAS as an auxiliary who might be
relied upon to ensure success if it could be done. Anyhow, the syndicate
led off with their main force first; for while the two killers hung on
the cachalot's flanks, diverting his attention, the sword-fish, a giant
some sixteen feet long, launched himself at the most vulnerable part of
the whale, for all the world like a Whitehead torpedo. The wary eye
of the whale saw the long, dark mass coming, and, like a practised
pugilist, coolly swerved, taking for the nonce no notice of those
worrying wolves astern. The shock came; but instead of the sword
penetrating three, or maybe four feet just where the neck (if a whale
has any neck) encloses the huge heart, it met the mighty, impenetrable
mass of the head, solid as a block of thirty tons of india-rubber.

So the blow glanced, revealing a white streak running diagonally across
the eye, while the great XIPHIAS rolled helplessly over the top of that
black bastion. With a motion so rapid that the eye could scarcely follow
it, the whale turned, settling withal, and, catching the momentarily
motionless aggressor in the lethal sweep of those awful shears, crunched
him in two halves, which writhing sections he swallowed SERIATIM. And
th