a Spanish smuggler for an old clasp-knife.
Why?"

"Cause it smells like rotten straw, an' won't improve the victuals.
Guess you'd better take yourself off, old chap."

"Wot a cross-grained crittur ye are," said Rokens, as he rose to depart.

At that moment there was heard a cry that sent the blood tingling to the
extremities of every one on board the _Red Eric_.

"Thar she blows! thar she blows!" shouted the man in the crow's-nest.

The crow's-nest is a sort of cask, or nest, fixed at the top of the
mainmast of whale-ships, in which a man is stationed all day during the
time the ships are on the fishing-ground, to look out for whales; and
the cry, "Thar she blows," announced the fact that the look-out had
observed a whale rise to the surface and blow a spout of steamy water
into the air.

No conceivable event--unless perhaps the blowing-up of the ship itself--
could have more effectually and instantaneously dissipated the deep
tranquillity to which we have more than once referred. Had an electric
shock been communicated through the ship to each individual, the crew
could not have been made to leap more vigorously and simultaneously.
Many days before, they had begun to expect to see whales. Every one was
therefore on the _qui vive_, so that when the well-known signal rang out
like a startling peal in the midst of the universal stillness, every
heart in the ship leaped in unison.

Had an observant man been seated at the time in the forecastle, he would
have noticed that from out of the ten or fifteen hammocks that swung
from the beams, there suddenly darted ten or fifteen pairs of legs which
rose to the perpendicular position in order to obtain leverage to "fetch
way." Instantly thereafter the said legs descended, and where the feet
had been, ten or fifteen heads appeared. Next moment the men were
"tumbling up" the fore-hatch to the deck, where the watch had already
sprung to the boat-tackles.

"Where away?" sang out Captain Dunning who was among the first on deck.

"Off the weather bow, sir, three points."

"How far?"

"About two miles. Thar she blows!"

"Call all hands," shouted the captain.

"Starboard watch, ahoy!" roared the mate, in that curious hoarse voice
peculiar to boatswains of men-of-war. "Tumble up, lads, tumble up!
Whale in sight! Bear a hand, my hearties!"

The summons was almost unnecessary. The "starboard watch" was--with the
exception of one or two uncommonly heavy sleepers--al