"'Now, lads, bend your oars!' shouted the captain through his trumpet. The entire length of rope unwound directly from the reel or 'bollard' of the first launch, and the line of a second boat was attached forthwith; a third and a fourth were annexed, but the whale exhibited no sign of exhaustion, and dragged his pursuers like the wind. A fifth and a sixth line spun out. The captain's cheek grew pale, and he opened his clasp-knife with a curse upon his lips. There remained the line of our boat alone: unless the monster stopped within ten minutes, we should lose every foot of the ship's cordage, and this last rope would have to be severed. Tremulously a seaman attached it; it was whirled out as if by a locomotive. The oars moved like light, but no human activity could approach that of our victim. He nearly swamped the launch, and the friction of the bollard threatened to set it ablaze.
"'What devil of the deep is this?' said the captain, bending forward with his blade. The sailors ceased with hot faces, and stared aghast. I seemed to hear calling voices; I grew faint and blind. The bollard snapped with a dead, dull sound; I was entangled in the stout twine, and tossed into the sea. Some oars were thrown overboard, that I might be buoyed up. Three of the launches were turned toward me, and the seamen called aloud that I should keep up courage. But the line pulled me downward; my heart ceased to beat; I beheld with indescribable terror the pale surface receding, and the dark shapes of the vessels above me were finally lost to view. I knew that at the first inhalation the brine would fill my mouth and lungs; I held my breath hard, and tried to pray. Down, down, down into the blue depths—a cycle of protracted years it seemed! My ears were stunned with strange noises; my lips parted, and at length the sea rushed into my throat; for an instant I seemed to strangle, but I did not perish.
"The fluid was mysteriously expelled from me. I breathed as freely of the water as a moment before I had breathed of the air! A weight was lifted from my brain, which had before been crushing it, and my temples grew suddenly cool. A spiracle had developed at the apex of my cranium, and I exuded water through a cavity or 'blow-hole' in the top of my head, like the cetacea around me!"
The naturalist here paused and ran his hand through his hair. The shining something among his gray locks revealed itself as a plate of silver, circular in shape, covering what had evidently been an opening in the skull. He looked less like a man than ever, and when, consulting a glutinous old chronometer, like a jellyfish, he found that his hour was passing, he begged so earnestly to be allowed to finish his "Introduction," that I gave him leave. A boy coming in with copy so frightened him, however, that I thought he was going to turn upon his stomach, and swim away through the window.
"I became sensible directly of three organic changes: my heels clave together, my feet flattened, and my toes turned out, like a caudal fin; my integument grew thick and hard, and my blood thin and chill. But these conditions being novel to me, and my fears only equalled by my wonder as yet, I was paralyzed, and continued to sink. I had descended about one hundred fathoms, and was experiencing a strange oppression, as of the forcing together of my bones, when I heard a sonorous voice close below me say! 'If you go any deeper, you will sustain a pressure of twenty atmospheres, and may not get back at all.'"
I looked beneath, and to my horror a huge whale was coming upward with extended jaws. His half-human eyes were turned benignantly upon me; but he was evidently in pain, and from a point in his back, where a broken harpoon still remained, gouts of blood curdled upward, coloring the water. His vocal power lay in his spiracle, and he said again:
"'I should have been asphyxiated in five minutes.'
"'Who is it that speaks?' I faltered. 'Leviathan, king of the sea, be merciful!'
"'I am called New England Tom by the creatures of the upper element,' answered the whale, 'although falsely thought to be of the family of the Spermaceti; but though my exploits have recommended me to my species, I am not equal to the high title you have given me. That is possessed by you and our sovereign Jonah only!'
"The conviction rushed upon me that I had, indeed, 'dominion over the fish'!