y, to spare us the prolonged horrors of
starvation. What a multitude of incoherent thoughts and recollections
crowded upon my mind in that moment of time! A thousand little
incidents of my past life, disconnected and trivial--a shadowy throng of
familiar scenes and faces, surged up before me, vividly as objects
revealed for an instant by the glare of the lightning, in the gloom of a
stormy night. Closing my eyes, I silently commended my soul to God, and
was endeavouring to compose myself for the dreadful event when Morton
sprang to his feet, and called hurriedly upon us to shout together. All
seemed to catch his intention at once, and to perceive in it a gleam of
hope; and standing up we raised our voices in a hoarse cry, that sounded
strange and startling even to ourselves. Instantly, as it seemed, the
whale drove almost perpendicularly downwards, but so great was its
momentum, that its fluked tail cut the air within an oar's length of the
boat as it disappeared.

Whether the shout we had uttered, caused the sudden plunge to which we
owed our preservation, it is impossible to decide. Notwithstanding its
bulk and power, the cachelot is said to be a timid creature, except when
injured or enraged, and great caution has to be exercised by whalers in
approaching them. Suddenly recollecting this, the thought of
undertaking to scare the formidable monster, had suggested itself to
Morton, and he had acted upon it in sheer desperation, impelled by the
same instinct that causes a drowning man to catch even at a straw.

But, however obtained, our reprieve from danger was only momentary. The
whale came to the surface at no great distance, and once more headed
towards us. If frightened for an instant, it had quickly recovered from
the panic, and now there was no mistaking the creature's purpose: it
came on, exhibiting every mark of rage, and with jaws literally wide
open. We felt that no device or effort of our own could be of any
avail. We might as well hope to resist a tempest, or an earthquake, or
the shock of a falling mountain, as that immense mass of matter,
instinct with life and power, and apparently animated by brute fury.

Every hope had vanished, and I think that we were all in a great measure
resigned to death, and fully expecting it when there came, (as it seemed
to us, by actual miracle), a most wonderful interposition.

A dark, bulky mass, (in the utter bewilderment of the moment we noted
nothing distin