eads of her
sails from the deck, but as soon as I saw her I resigned the tiller to
Bob and went up as far as the cross-trees to have a better look at her.

From thence I made her out to be a barque apparently close-hauled on the
port tack; but of what nationality she might be we were yet too far
distant from her to decide, though I thought from the cut of her sails
that she was English.

I was still standing upon the cross-trees, shouting my observations to
Bob, when I noticed a commotion amongst the herd of whales, which we
were by this time fast nearing, and bringing my glass to bear, I at
length made out three boats pulling towards them.

The whales were evidently rather doubtful as to the intentions of these
boats, though we were not. We saw at once that the stranger was a
whaler, and that these were her boats despatched in chase.

The whales came swimming leisurely to windward with the boats in hot
pursuit. What to do was now the question with us. We ought most
certainly to advise the whalers of the character of the brig, but it
would never do to shorten sail and deviate anything considerable from
our course with this object.

We should very probably be taken before we could accomplish our purpose,
and in that event we should sacrifice ourselves without doing the others
any good. However, as a preliminary, we displayed our ensign, and as
the boats were coming almost directly towards us, I sheered sufficiently
out of our course to pass within hail of the leader.

We were now running through the very thickest of the herd, and it was
rather nervous work, for with a single lash of its mighty tail any one
of the monsters might have destroyed us; and with such a cloud of canvas
as we were carrying the deviations from our course which we dared to
make were very trifling.

Had we luffed, for example, high enough for our spinnaker to jibe, the
craft would probably have "turned the turtle" with us; or, if we had
proved fortunate enough to escape this, we should most certainly have
made a clean sweep of the spars.

We were almost within hail of the leading boat when she fastened to an
enormous whale. The creature dived instantly, taking out line at a
tremendous rate, but still continuing on its original course.

This brought the boat close past us on our starboard side, the crew
sitting with their oars apeak, and the water foaming a good foot above
the level of the boat's bows as she was towed furiously along.