ared
away the breakfast, carefully washing up everything, and stowing it
away, and had been in his hammock about an hour.

I was enjoying the fresh beauty of the morning and the exultant feeling
excited by our rapid motion, and picturing to my imagination the delight
with which my father would welcome the appearance of our snowy canvas--
when we should heave in sight--when my visions were dispersed by a loud,
cracking sound like the report of a rifle, from some distance away on
our weatherbow. I looked in that direction, and caught a momentary
glimpse of some distant object whirling in the air, and immediately
afterwards the sound was repeated.

I stood up to get a better view over the low ridges of the sea, and at
the same instant caught sight of what looked like a jet of steam rising
out of the ocean.

"There she blows!" exclaimed I, involuntarily, aloud.

Again up whirled the object I had before observed; again it descended,
and again came the rifle-like report I knew in an instant now what it
was. An unfortunate whale had fallen in with his inveterate enemy, a
"thresher," and had been forthwith attacked. I could plainly
distinguish the huge creature plunging along at a great rate, and at an
angle of about forty-five degrees with our course; so that he was
standing in such a direction as would take him across our bows.

From the persistent manner in which he remained at the surface, I came
to the conclusion that he had a second enemy to contend with in the
shape of a sword-fish. Indeed, the way in which he began to plunge
about soon put the matter almost beyond a doubt I was turning over in my
mind whether I should call Bob to see this sight, when the whale, with a
mighty effort, flung his huge bulk completely out of the water, to a
height of, I should say, fifteen or twenty feet; and, sure enough,
hanging to him was a large sword-fish, with his beak driven deep into
the muscles about the root of the persecuted animal's tail.

I shouted to Bob to come on deck at once, for we had neared each other
so much by this time, that I had an excellent view of the combat. And,
moreover, it struck me that a slight deviation in the course of the
combatants might bring them within extremely unpleasant proximity to the
little _Lily_, and I thought it might be prudent to have Bob on deck.

He was up in an instant, not waiting to perform the almost superfluous
ceremony of dressing, and there we both stood, so intensely ab