"The boat will be at the mercy of chance among all those tails, and we
are not lucky enough to throw at random. No; since the beggars have
taken to dancing, for a change, let them dance all night; to-morrow
they shall pay the piper." How, at peep of day, the man at the
mast-head saw ten whales about two leagues off on the weather-bow; how
the ship tacked and stood toward them; how she weathered on one of
monstrous size, and how he and the other youngsters were mad to lower
the boat and go after it, and how the captain said: "Ye lubbers, can't
ye see that is a right whale, and not worth a button? Look here away
over the quarter at this whale. See how low she spouts. She is a sperm
whale, and worth seven hundred pounds if she was only dead and towed
alongside."
"'That she shall be in about a minute,' cried one; and, indeed, we
were all in a flame; the boat was lowered, and didn't I worship the
skipper when he told me off to be one of her crew!
"I was that eager to be in at that whale's death, I didn't recollect
there might be smaller brutes in danger.
"Just before the oars fell into the water, the skipper looked down
over the bulwarks, and says he to one of us that had charge of the
rope that is fast to the boat at one end and to the harpoon at the
other, 'Now, Jack you are a new hand; mind all I told you last night,
or your mother will see me come ashore without you, and that will vex
her; and, my lads, remember, if there is a single lubberly hitch in
that line, you will none of you come up the ship's side again.
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