nothing was left big enough to float a man.
The ship was miles away. Three of the sailors climbed on the back of their
enemy, clinging by the harpoons and ropes still fast to him, while the
others swam away for dear life, thinking only of escaping that
all-engulfing jaw or the blows of that murderous tail. Now came another
boat from the ship, picked up the swimmers, and cautiously rescued those
perched on the whale's back from their island of shuddering flesh. The
spirit of the monster was still undaunted. Though six harpoons were sunk
into his body and he was dragging 300 fathoms of line, he was still in
fighting mood, crunching oars, kegs, and bits of boat for more enemies to
demolish. All hands made for the ship, where Captain Hunting, quite as
dogged and determined as his adversary, was preparing to renew the combat.
Two spare boats were fitted for use, and again the whalemen started after
their foe. He, for his part, remained on the battle-ground, amid the
debris of his hunters' property, and awaited attack. Nay, more; he churned
the water with his mighty tail and moved forward to meet his enemy, with
ready jaw to grind them to bits. The captain at the boat-oar, or
steering-oar, made a mighty effort and escaped the rush; then sent an
explosive bomb into the whale's vitals as he surged past. Struck unto
death, the great bull went into his flurry; but in dying he rolled over
the captain's boat like an avalanche, destroying it as completely as he
had the three others. So man won the battle, but at a heavy cost. The
whaleman who chronicled this fight says significantly: "The captain
proceeded to Buenos Ayres, as much to allow his men, who were mostly
green, to run away, as for the purpose of refitting, as he knew they would
be useless thereafter." It was well recognized in the whaling service that
men once thoroughly "gallied," or frightened, were seldom useful again;
and, indeed, most of the participants in this battle did, as the captain
anticipated, desert at the first port.

Curiously enough, there did not begin to be a literature of whaling until
the industry went into its decadence. The old-time whalers, leading lives
of continual romance and adventure, found their calling so commonplace
that they noted shipwrecks, mutinies, and disaster in the struggles of the
whale baldly in their logbooks, without attempt at graphic description. It
is true the piety of Nantucket did result in incorporating the whale in
the loc