be crushed under one of those fearful strokes, for Mr. Count appeared to be oblivious of possible danger, although we seemed to be now drifting back on to the writhing leviathan.  In the agitated condition of the sea, it was a task of no ordinary difficulty to unship the tall mast, which was of course the first thing to be done.  After a desperate struggle, and a narrow escape from falling overboard of one of the men, we got the lone “stick,” with the sail bundled around it, down and “fleeted” aft, where it was secured by the simple means of sticking the “heel” under the after thwart, two-thirds of the mast extending out over the stern.  Meanwhile, we had certainly been in a position of the greatest danger, our immunity from damage being unquestionably due to anything but precaution taken to avoid it.

By the time the oars were handled, and the mate had exchanged places with the harpooner, our friend the enemy had “sounded,” that is, he had gone below for a change of scene, marvelling no doubt what strange thing had befallen him.  Agreeably to the accounts which I, like most boys, had read of the whale fishery, I looked for the rushing of the line round the logger-head (a stout wooden post built into the boat aft), to raise a cloud of smoke with occasional bursts of flame; so as it began to slowly surge round the post, I timidly asked the harpooner whether I should throw any water on it.  “Wot for?” growled he, as he took a couple more turns with it.  Not knowing “what for,” and hardly liking to quote my authorities here, I said no more, but waited events.  “Hold him up, Louey, bold him up, cain’t ye?” shouted the mate, and to my horror, down went the nose of the boat almost under water, while at the mate’s order everybody scrambled aft into the elevated stern sheets.

The line sang quite a tune as it was grudgingly allowed to surge round the loggerhead, filling one with admiration at the strength shown by such a small rope.  This sort of thing went on for about twenty minutes, in which time we quite emptied the large tub and began on the small one.  As there was nothing whatever for us to do while this was going on, I had ample leisure for observing the little game that was being played about a quarter of a mile away.  Mr. Cruce, the second mate, had got a whale and was doing his best to kill it; but he was severely handicapped by his crew, or rather had been, for two of them were now temporarily incapable of either good or harm.  They had gone quite “batchy” with fright, requiring a not too gentle application of the tiller to their heads in order to keep them quiet.  The remedy, if rough, was effectual, for “the subsequent proceedings interested them no more.”  Consequently his manoeuvres were not so well or rapidly executed as he, doubtless, could have wished, although his energy in lancing that whale was something to admire and remember.  Hatless, his shirt tail out of the waist of his trousers streaming behind him like a banner, he lunged and thrust at the whale alongside of him, as if possessed of a destroying devil, while his half articulate yells of rage and blasphemy were audible even to us.