'
"'All right, captain,' says Jack, and we pulled off singing,
"'And spring to your oars, and, make your boat fly,
And when you come near her beware of her eye,'
till the coxswain bade us hold our lubberly tongues, and not frighten
the whales; however, we soon found we wanted all our breath for our
work, and more too." Then David painted the furious race after the
whale, and how the boat gradually gained, and how at last, as he was
grinding his teeth and pulling like mad, he heard a sound ahead like a
hundred elephants wallowing; and now he hoped to see the harpooner
leave his oar, and rise and fling his weapon; "but that instant, up
flukes, a tower of fish was seen a moment in the air, with a tail-fin
at the top of it just about the size of this room we are sitting in,
ladies, and down the whale sounded; then it was pull on again in her
wake, according as she headed in sounding; pull for the dear life; and
after a while the oarsmen saw the steerman's eyes, prying over the
sea, turn like hot coals. The men caught fire at this, and put their
very backbones into each stroke, and the boat skimmed and flew.
Suddenly the steersman cried out fiercely, 'Stand up, harpoon! Up rose
the harpooner, _his_ eye like a hot coal now. The men saw
nothing; they must pull fiercer than ever. The harpooner balanced his
iron, swayed his body lightly, and the harpoon hissed from him. A soft
thud--then a heaving of the water all round, a slap that sounded like
a church tower falling flat upon an acre of boards, and drenched, and
blinded, and half smothered us all in spray, and at the same moment
away whirled the boat, dancing and kicking in the whale's foaming,
bubbling wake, and we holding on like grim death by the thwarts, not
to be spun out into the sea.
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