munity from damage being unquestionably due to anything but
precaution taken to avoid it.

By the time the oars were handled, and the mate had exchanged places
with the harpooner, our friend the enemy had "sounded," that is, he had
gone below for a change of scene, marvelling no doubt what strange thing
had befallen him. Agreeably to the accounts which I, like most boys, had
read of the whale fishery, I looked for the rushing of the line round
the logger-head (a stout wooden post built into the boat aft), to raise
a cloud of smoke with occasional bursts of flame; so as it began to
slowly surge round the post, I timidly asked the harpooner whether I
should throw any water on it. "Wot for?" growled he, as he took a couple
more turns with it. Not knowing "what for," and hardly liking to quote
my authorities here, I said no more, but waited events. "Hold him up,
Louey, bold him up, cain't ye?" shouted the mate, and to my horror, down
went the nose of the boat almost under water, while at the mate's order
everybody scrambled aft into the elevated stern sheets.

The line sang quite a tune as it was grudgingly allowed to surge round
the loggerhead, filling one with admiration at the strength shown by
such a small rope. This sort of thing went on for about twenty minutes,
in which time we quite emptied the large tub and began on the small one.
As there was nothing whatever for us to do while this was going on, I
had ample leisure for observing the little game that was being played
about a quarter of a mile away. Mr. Cruce, the second mate, had got a
whale and was doing his best to kill it; but he was severely handicapped
by his crew, or rather had been, for two of them were now temporarily
incapable of either good or harm. They had gone quite "batchy" with
fright, requiring a not too gentle application of the tiller to their
heads in order to keep them quiet. The remedy, if rough, was effectual,
for "the subsequent proceedings interested them no more." Consequently
his manoeuvres were not so well or rapidly executed as he, doubtless,
could have wished, although his energy in lancing that whale was
something to admire and remember. Hatless, his shirt tail out of the
waist of his trousers streaming behind him like a banner, he lunged and
thrust at the whale alongside of him, as if possessed of a destroying
devil, while his half articulate yells of rage and blasphemy were
audible even to us.

Suddenly our boat fell backward from