the boat and crew right down:  many such fatal accidents occur to whalers, and many a poor fellow has had a foot or an arm torn off, or been dragged overboard and drowned, in consequence of getting entangled.  One of the men stood ready with a small hatchet to cut the line in a moment, if necessary; for whales sometimes run out all that is in a boat at the first plunge, and should none of the other boats be at hand to lend a second line to attach to the one nearly expended, there is nothing for it but to cut.  On the present occasion, however, none of these accidents befell the men of the captain’s boat.  The line ran all clear, and long before it was exhausted the whale ceased to descend, and the slack was hauled rapidly in.

Meanwhile the other boats pulled up to the scene of action, and prepared to strike the instant the fish should rise to the surface.  It appeared, suddenly, not twenty yards from the mate’s boat, where Buzzby, who was harpooner, stood in the bow ready to give it the iron.

“Spring, lads, spring!” shouted the mate, as the whale spouted into the air a thick stream of water.  The boat dashed up, and Buzzby planted his harpoon vigorously.  Instantly the broad flukes of the tail were tossed into the air, and, for a single second, spread like a canopy over Buzzby’s head.  There was no escape.  The quick eye of the whaleman saw at a glance that the effort to back out was hopeless.  He bent his head, and the next moment was deep down in the waves.  Just as he disappeared the flukes descended on the spot which he had left, and cut the bow of the boat completely away, sending the stern high into the air with a violence that tossed men, and oars, and shattered planks, and cordage, flying over the monster’s back into the seething caldron of foam around it.  It was apparently a scene of the most complete and instantaneous destruction, yet, strange to say, not a man was lost.  A few seconds after, the white foam of the sea was dotted with black heads as the men rose one by one to the surface, and struck out for floating oars and pieces of the wrecked boat.

“They’re lost!” cried Fred Ellice in a voice of horror.

“Not a bit of it, youngster; they’re safe enough, I’ll warrant,” replied the captain, as his own boat flew past the spot, towed by the whale.—­“Pay out, Amos Parr; give him line, or he’ll tear the bows out of us.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” sang out Amos, as he sat coolly pouring water on the loggerhead round which a coil of the rope was whizzing like lightning; “all right.  The mate’s men are all safe, sir; I counted them as we shot past, and I seed Buzzby come up last of all, blowin’ like a grampus; and small wonder, considerin’ the dive he took.”

“Take another turn of the coil, Amos, and hold on,” said the captain.