he rose again to the surface about a ship’s length away, and then surged forward on the surface, striking the vessel just forward of the fore-chains.  “The ship brought up as suddenly and violently as if she had struck a rock,” said the mate afterward, “and trembled for few seconds like a leaf.”  Then she began to settle, but not fast enough to satisfy the ire of the whale.  Circling around, he doubled his speed, and bore down upon the “Essex” again.  This time his head fairly stove in the bows, and the ship sank so fast that the men were barely able to provision and launch the boats.  Curiously enough, the monster that had thus destroyed a stout ship paid no attention whatsoever to the little boats, which would have been like nutshells before his bulk and power.  But many of the men who thus escaped only went to a fate more terrible than to have gone down with their stout ship.  Adrift on a trackless sea, 1000 miles from land, in open boats, with scant provision of food or water, they faced a frightful ordeal.  After twenty-eight days they found an island, but it proved a desert.  After leaving it the boats became separated—­one being never again heard of.  In the others men died fast, and at last the living were driven by hunger actually to eat the dead.  Out of the captain’s boat two only were rescued; out of the mate’s, three.  In all twelve men were sacrificed to the whale’s rage.

Mere lust for combat seemed to animate this whale, for he had not been pursued by the men of the “Essex,” though perhaps in some earlier meeting with men he had felt the sting of the harpoon and the searching thrust of the lance.  So great is the vitality of the cachalot that it not infrequently breaks away from its pursuers, and with two or three harpoon-heads in its body lives to a ripe, if not a placid, old age.  The whale that sunk the New Bedford ship “Ann Alexander” was one of these fighting veterans.  With a harpoon deep in his side he turned and deliberately ran over and sunk the boat that was fast to him; then with equal deliberation sent a second boat to the bottom.  This was before noon, and occurred about six miles from the ship, which bore down as fast as could be to pick up the struggling men.  The whale, apparently contented with his escape, made off.  But about sunset Captain Delois, iron in hand, watching from the knight-heads of the “Ann Alexander” for other whales to repair his ill-luck, saw the redoubtable fighter not far away, swimming at about a speed of five knots.  At the same time the whale spied the ship.  Increasing his speed to fifteen knots, he bore down upon her, and with the full force of his more than 100 tons bulk struck her “a terrible blow about two feet from the keel and just abreast of the foremast, breaking a large hole in her bottom, through which the water poured in a rushing stream.”  The crew had scarce time to get out the boats, with one day’s provisions, but were happily picked up by a passing vessel two days later.  The whale itself met retribution five months later, when it was taken by another American ship.  Two of the “Ann Alexander’s” harpoons were in him, his head bore deep scars, and in it were imbedded pieces of the ill-fated ship’s timbers.