After this burst of temper, perhaps I had better get back to the subject in hand.  It was, I suppose, in the usual contrary nature of things that, while we were all in this nearly helpless condition, one evening just before sunset, along comes a sperm whale.  Now, the commonest prudence would have suggested letting him severely alone, since we were not only short-handed, but several of our crew were completely crippled by large boils; but it would have been an unprecedented thing to do while there was any room left in the hold.  Consequently we mustered the halt and the lame, and manned two boats—­all we could do—­leaving the almost useless cripples to handle the ship.  Not to displace the rightful harpooner, I took an oar in one of them, headed by the captain.

At first my hopes were high that we should not succeed in reaching the victim before dark, but I was grievously disappointed in this.  Just as the whale was curving himself to sound, we got fairly close, and the harpooner made a “pitch-pole” dart; that is, he hurled his weapon into the air, where it described a fine curve, and fell point downward on the animal’s back just as he was disappearing.  He stopped his descent immediately, and turned savagely to see what had struck him so unexpectedly.  At that moment the sun went down.

After the first few minutes’ “kick-up,” he settled down for a steady run, but not before the mate got good and fast to him likewise.  Away we went at a rare rate into the gathering gloom of the fast-coming night.  Now, had it been about the time of full moon or thereabouts, we should doubtless have been able, by the flood of molten light she sends down in those latitudes, to give a good account of our enemy; but alas for us, it was not.  The sky overhead was a deep blue-black, with steely sparkles of starlight scattered all over it, only serving to accentuate the darkness.  After a short time our whale became totally invisible, except for the phosphoric glare of the water all around him as he steadily ploughed his way along.  There was a good breeze blowing, which soon caused us all to be drenched with the spray, rendering the general effect of things cold as well as cheerless.  Needless to say, we strove with all our might to get alongside of him, so that an end might be put to so unpleasant a state of affairs; but in our crippled condition it was not at all easy to do so.

We persevered, however, and at last managed to get near enough for the skipper to hurl a lance into the brightness of which the whale formed the centre.  It must have touched him, for he gave a bound forward and disappeared.  We suddenly came to a standstill, but in a moment were whirled round as if on a pivot, and away we went in the opposite direction.  He had turned a complete somersault in the water beneath us, giving us a “grue” as we reflected what would have happened had he then chosen to come bounding to the surface.  This manoeuvre seemed