The other ships now had their boats in the water, and as Captain Coffin saw them approach he called to his officers: "Don't let the Nantucketers beat us! They are regular sharks after sperm-oil, but we have four whales the best of them now. Every man here must strike his fish to-day."
He had hardly finished his speech when, right beside our boat, an old bull whale showed his nose out of the water and sent a blast of hot air out of his spout-holes, which was blown back to us by the wind.
As we felt the warm breath on our faces, each man checked his oar. And right here, children, I want to correct a mistaken idea. Whales don't spout water. It is their hot breath which, like the breath from a horse's nostrils in winter, shows white against the sky and looks like water.
The body of the whale which had broken water beside us bore many a scar, and his back was all covered with barnacles.
"Now, boys, give way to your oars, and you, steward, lay me right on to him!" spoke Captain Coffin, and as each man gave a steady pull steward, with a skilful turn of the steering oar, brought the head of the boat round, and the next instant her bow brought up against the body of the whale. Captain Coffin's wish was fulfilled, for, in whalemen's lore, we were "wood and black skin."
Instantly he plunged his harpoon into the monster's quivering blubber, and with a dexterity that was wonderful in a man of his size, he seized another and thrust it to the hilt beside the first.
"Stern all! stern all!" he cried, and, as we backed away from the maddened whale, it turned and, with one sweep of its flukes, sent a cataract of water over us that almost filled the boat, and drenched us to the skin. It dived, then, and the whale line ran out of its tub so rapidly that the loggerhead in the stern, around which was a turn of the line, smoked like a chimney.
"Pour some water on that line!" cried the steward to the tub oarsman. And as the man obeyed, the steward tightened the turn on the rope, and the boat shot ahead like a race-horse.
Soon the whale slackened his speed and rode to the surface, and in a few moments broke water off our starboard bow. Then Captain Coffin ordered us to gather in the line and pull him up beside the whale, and at the same time he took a long lance from its socket and having braced himself firmly against the bow thwart, stood ready.
What a moment of awe it was to me as I looked at the monster angrily lashing the water with its fins and flukes! The next instant we were beside the whale, and as it rolled on its side Captain Coffin transfixed him with a thrust of his lance that seemed to pierce his very vitals. The next moment the blood poured in gallons from his spout-holes. Having slackened the line from the boat, we rested on our oars at a safe distance and watched the monster circling around in its dying fury.