tremendous roars are
produced by the noise of falling waters, the current would increase in
activity, and its increasing swiftness would give me some idea of the
extent of the peril with which we are menaced. I consult the current. It
simply does not exist: there is no such thing. An empty bottle cast into
the water lies to leeward without motion.

About four o'clock Hans rises, clambers up the mast, and reaches the
truck itself. From this elevated position his looks are cast around.
They take in a vast circumference of the ocean. At last, his eyes remain
fixed. His face expresses no astonishment, but his eyes slightly dilate.

"He has seen something at last," cried my uncle.

"I think so," I replied.

Hans came down, stood beside us, and pointed with his right hand to the
south.

"Der nere," he said.

"There," replied my uncle.

And seizing his telescope, he looked at it with great attention for
about a minute, which to me appeared an age. I knew not what to think or
expect.

"Yes, yes," he cried in a tone of considerable surprise, "there it is."

"What?" I asked.

"A tremendous spurt of water rising out of the waves."

"Some other marine monster," I cried, already alarmed.

"Perhaps."

"Then let us steer more to the westward, for we know what we have to
expect from antediluvian animals," was my eager reply.

"Go ahead," said my uncle.

I turned towards Hans. Hans was at the tiller steering with his usual
imperturbable calm.

Nevertheless, if from the distance which separated us from this
creature, a distance which must be estimated at not less than a dozen
leagues, one could see the column of water spurting from the blow-hole
of the great animal, his dimensions must be something preternatural. To
fly is, therefore, the course to be suggested by ordinary prudence. But
we have not come into that part of the world to be prudent. Such is my
uncle's determination.

We, accordingly, continued to advance. The nearer we come, the loftier
is the spouting water. What monster can fill himself with such huge
volumes of water, and then unceasingly spout them out in such lofty
jets?

At eight o'clock in the evening, reckoning as above ground, where there
is day and night, we are not more than two leagues from the mighty
beast. Its long, black, enormous, mountainous body, lies on the top of
the water like an island. But then sailors have been said to have gone
ashore on sleeping whales, mistaking them for la