"You can bet we didn't need to be told twice. We hadn't fairly got started when the whale sounded, and we could tell by the trend of the line that he was coming back toward the boat.
"'Look out!' shouted Bacon.
"The next second the brute shot clear out of the water not fifty feet off the starboard beam of our boat, and raised such a wave when he fell back into the sea that he nearly swamped us.
"'For goodness' sake," says one of the men, 'cut the line and let him go.'
"'We'll never get back to the ship alive,' says another; 'look at the sea. It's blowing a gale.'
"Well, it was blowing in a bit of a squall just then, but Bacon's blood was up, and he was bound to have that whale.
"'Pull me up to him!' he shouted.
"We obeyed orders, and Bacon drove the lance right into his life.
"'Starn all!' he yelled, and we didn't get out of the way a second too quick, for the monster went into his flurry, and beat the sea into an acre of foam with his immense flukes. However, there he was dead enough, and in the mean time the ship had worked down to leeward of us, and was close at hand. It was a pretty troublesome piece of work to pass the line around his small in such a nasty sea; we managed to do it after four or five trials, and he was hauled alongside the ship just as it began to grow dark. Now I tell you what, lads, it was a very uncommon sight. There was the ship beginning to roll uneasily in the rising sea, with a blazing, smoking furnace amidships, looking for all the world as if she was on fire, and a whale on each side of her. The boats were hauled up, and then the Captain looked about him.
"'Cut the old whale adrift,' says he; 'we can't tow the two of them in this weather, and we've got about the best of his oil.'