re than ten miles distant during the whole night.
She had sighted us with the first light, and made all sail down to us,
all hands much relieved at our safety. We were so sorely exhausted that
we could hardly climb on board; and how we hoisted the boats I hardly
know. The whale was secured by the efforts of the cripples we had left
on board, while we wayfarers, after a good meal, were allowed four
hours' sound, sweet sleep.

When we returned to our duties, the first thing that awaited us was
the burial of the poor body. Very reverently were the last sad offices
performed, the flag hoisted half-mast, the bell solemnly tolled. Then we
gathered at the gangway while the eternal words of hope and consolation
were falteringly read, and with a sudden plunge the long, straight
parcel slid off the hatch into the vast tomb ever ready for the dead
sailor.

Our dead out of sight, work claimed all our attention and energy, wiping
with its benificent influence all gloomy musings over the inevitable,
and replacing them with the pressing needs of life. The whale was not
a large one, but peculiar to look at. Like the specimen that fought so
fiercely with us in the Indian Ocean, its jaw was twisted round in a
sort of hook, the part that curved being so thickly covered with
long barnacles as to give the monster a most eerie look. One of the
Portuguese expressed his decided opinion that we had caught Davy Jones
himself, and that, in consequence, we should have no more accidents.
It was impossible not to sympathize with the conceit, for of all the
queer-looking monstrosities ever seen, this latest acquisition of ours
would have taken high honours. Such malformations of the lower mandible
of the cachalot have often been met with, and variously explained; but
the most plausible opinion seems to be that they have been acquired when
the animal is very young and its bones not yet indurated, since it
is impossible to believe that an adult could suffer such an accident
without the broken jaw drooping instead of being turned on one side.

The yield of oil was distressingly scanty, the whale being what is
technically known as a "dry skin." The blubber was so hard and tough
that we could hardly cut it up for boiling, and altogether it was one of
the most disappointing affairs we had yet dealt with. This poorness of
blubber was, to my mind, undoubtedly due to the difficulty the animal
must have had in obtaining food with his disabling defect of jaw.