It was a pretty sight. The weather was perfect, a moderate westerly breeze, and bright sunshine sparkling on the water, with the four boats driving ahead before the wind and spreading out fanwise as they went, and the occasional feathery spouts in the distance. The boats looked like toy boats upon a painted ocean with tiny streaks of cotton wool foam at their bows. I was not very high above them, but the whole picture was spread out before my eyes. It would have been much better at the masthead. I looked aloft as I thought of that, with some vague idea of trying to get up there, and I saw the Admiral busy with a flag. It was a sort of dirt-colored banner, and he seemed to be trying experiments with it, hoisting it full up, then trying it at half-mast, then stretching it out at one side or at the other, or taking it in completely. He was signalling to the boats the position of the whales, which he could see very well, while the men in the boats could see them only occasionally or not at all. When the boats got near enough the Admiral put his flag away.

Meanwhile the ship was keeping off after the boats. They had been bracing the yards around slowly, for there were few men left on her besides the idlers, of whom I was one. Nobody saw me—nobody thought of me, very possibly—and I stayed crouched in the maintop and watched the boats. It did not occur to me that my duty lay on deck. Captain Nelson told me of it afterward. At the time the masthead man was the only man who caught sight of me. I caught him grinning at me several times, and wondered what he was grinning about.

The boats, by this time, had got very near the place where I had last seen the spouts, but there were none to be seen now, and all boats except Mr. Wallet’s had taken in their sails, and lay rocking and waiting for the whales to come up. Mr. Wallet was still a long way behind, for even the wind seemed to help all the others more than it did him. I had my glass to my eyes, and I saw a gentle commotion in the water beyond Mr. Brown’s boat, then another beyond Mr. Baker’s, and almost instantly two spouts arose, very close to the boats, and the men took to their oars with a will. As the whales had just come up, and had had no chance to breathe more than once or twice, to say nothing of having their spoutings out, they could not go down again, or if they did, they could stay down but a few minutes. This was just the condition the men had been waiting for, and they took full advantage of it. I could see Macy, the boatsteerer in Mr. Baker’s boat,—the boatsteerer rows the bow oar,—take in his oar, face about toward the bow, and stand up. He fitted his thigh into the thigh-hole in the cleat, took the first harpoon from the crotch, and poised it in his two hands, leaning far forward. The chance that he was waiting for came in a few seconds, and he darted the harpoon with all his strength; instantly seized the second harpoon from the crotch, and threw that as the first one struck.

I had hardly been able to see the whale, as there was but little of him out of water, and that little only an indis­tin­guish­able dark mound; but immediately upon feeling the irons in him, he raised his flukes high in air, and brought them down upon the surface with a tremendous crash. They missed the boat, for the men had been backing water with all their might, but the miss was by a small margin, and the boat and the men in it were deluged with water. Then the boatsteerer made his way aft, and took the steering oar, and Mr. Baker went forward and selected his lance. He had no chance to use it while they were in sight, however, for the whale set off for the horizon at great speed, “head out,” the efforts of the powerful flukes making his whole body undulate, so that his head was alternately entirely buried in the sea, and almost completely exposed, the narrow under-jaw serving as a cutwater. The last I saw of that boat, Macy, the boatsteerer, stood at the steering oar, keeping the boat straight behind the fleeing whale, while he tried to snub the whale line completely by taking more turns around the loggerhead. A thin wreath of blue smoke was rising from the loggerhead, and one of the men was throwing water by the hatful upon it. The boat was throwing a sheet of water on each side of her bow, almost like a stream from a fire hose.

All this hardly took longer than it takes to tell it. Meanwhile Mr. Brown’s boat had pulled hard for the second whale, a longer pull than Mr. Baker’s. They had got almost within darting distance when Macy struck his whale, and every man in Mr. Brown’s boat heard the thundering crash of the flukes on the water.

Wright, the boatsteerer, was already taking in his oar when Mr. Brown gave him the word, for he knew what to expect. It is not strange that I was in the dark as to the reasons for their actions, but very naturally I thought it all right, although it did not seem possible to dart the heavy harpoon that distance. Of course I could not hear what Mr. Brown said, but Peter told me later, and explained the actions of the whales according to his own notions—which may be right enough. At all events, they are the notions generally held by whalemen.

Wright took in his oar hurriedly—too hurriedly—scrambled to his place in the bow, and grabbed a harpoon; but the whale had been losing no time either, and the boat had gained but a few feet on him when he started. He was going under without throwing his flukes into the air, and he gathered speed very quickly. Wright threw the harpoon with all the force left in him after his hard pull, but it was a good twenty-five foot dart to the whale, which was going as fast as the boat, and Wright had not the strength. The harpoon fell short and nicked the whale’s flukes on an up stroke, serving only to increase his speed instantly, and he disappeared.

I looked around, and could see no whales. There was Mr. Baker’s boat well on its way to the Azores, with white water some distance ahead of it, marking the action of their whale’s flukes as he ran. All the others had vanished, and the boats lay still on the surface of the sea in attitudes of dejection, the men seeming to be looking longingly after the fleeing whales. In a few minutes I heard a cry from the masthead, and saw what the men were looking for. There, miles away, was a lone spout, and then another, and a third; and they seemed hurried. The whales had been swimming under water. We should not get near those whales again, and the boats pulled slowly to the ship.

What had happened, according to Peter, was this: Whales have some mysterious way of com­mun­i­cating with each other, although there may be miles of water between them. Peter did not undertake to say what the means of com­mun­i­cation was. It may have been the blow of the flukes on the water when the whale was struck with the harpoon, although whales lobtail frequently without causing alarm in their companions. Whatever the means, old whalemen maintain that, when a whale is struck, it com­mun­i­cates that fact, in some way, to the others; and they become “gallied”—frightened—and make off at once. I had seen them do so, and how could I doubt it? Of course Peter did not tell me about it at that time. He and his boat, and all the men in it, were out of sight.

I stirred myself when the boats were alongside, giving myself a shake, I remember, and waking from the trance I had been in. I do not know how I got down, but I must have thrown my legs over the edge of the crosstrees and found the ratlines on the futtock shrouds with my feet like any old hand, for I was concerned only with reaching the deck as soon as possible.