"The cap'n says sixty barrels."
"I mean, how long is he?"
"O, I don't know. I never took the measure of one. I ain't a tailor."
"Did you ever know of one larger than this?"
"Many a one. I heard of one once that ran a hundred and thirty-five barrels, but I didn't see him. The biggest one I ever struck or saw struck turned out a hundred and fifteen barrels."
"Almost twice as large as this one," thought Frank, hardly able to believe his ears. "Whew! I will never sail another foot in the Tycoon after we reach the Sandwich Islands. If a youngster can kick up a row like this, what could a full grown one do? What wouldn't he do if he got mad?"
Frank was greatly relieved to hear one of the men say at that moment that the ship was coming down to pick them up. It was anything but pleasant to be placed in such a situation as that in which he and his companions were placed just then, immersed to their necks in salt water, every wave making a clean breach over them, nothing but a battered boat to keep them afloat, an enraged and ugly whale in close proximity, and a school of hungry sharks expected to arrive every moment. On the contrary, it was a situation well calculated to inspire terror.
The good ship never seemed to move so slowly before, but she came up with them at last, a boat pulled by two men came out to their relief, and in ten minutes more the wrecked boat was on deck in possession of the carpenter, and the exhausted men were in the forecastle, exchanging their wet clothes for dry ones. When Frank went on deck again the whale was in his "flurry," which, upon inquiry, he found to be a sailor's way of saying "death struggle." The mate and his crew had made short work of him, and Frank came up too late to see the lance used. The whale was swimming in a circle at a surprising rate of speed, pounding the sea with his flukes, spouting blood from his blow-hole, and rolling from side to side as if trying to reach his enemies with his jaw. His fury increased for a few seconds, then gradually lessened, and finally the captured monster rolled over and lay motionless on the water. "Fin out!" cried all the sailors on the Tycoon, which was equivalent to saying, "he is dead." Then all joined in a yell of triumph, except Frank. He could not help feeling sorry for the conquered leviathan, who had battled so strongly for his life, and told himself that it was a mean business altogether.
"Men who can torture a beast like that to death and feel no remorse over it, would serve their fellow creatures the same way if they had a good chance," was what he said to himself. "I know now how it comes that the captain and his two mates are so brutal. They have practiced on whales so long that they have no feeling left."
Now came the work of making fast to the whale, which was begun as soon as the ship was brought alongside of it. Frank did not see how it was done, for he was kept busy at something else. When he had leisure to look over the side he found the game secured by a chain, one end of which was fastened just above the tail, and the other led through a hawsehole to the bitts. He could see the whole length of him now, and had it not been for the three harpoons sticking in his back and side, he could hardly have brought himself to believe that it was the same whale that smashed his boat. He looked very much smaller, and the reason was because he had something to compare him with.