ll in a state of unusual excitement, into which, weakened as he was
by famine, the alarm he had just experienced had thrown him.

"Your father is in his boat, be assured of that, Walter," answered the
mate calmly; "and now, the sooner you go on the raft and join your
sister the better." Still Walter did not go, but again seizing the
flag, kept waving it; but the raft glided on, moved by the strong wind,
which now reached the part of the ocean on which the whale floated. The
mate himself could not help standing to watch it, but it rapidly got
farther and farther off. At last, taking Walter's arm, he said, "Come,
we must waste no more time here; Nub and I will help you down to the
raft."

Walter made no resistance, but allowed himself to be lowered down, the
mate and Nub following him. Alice threw her arms around his neck when
she saw him, exclaiming,--"What has all that noise been about? I have
been so frightened. Why did you not come and tell me?"

The mate briefly explained what had happened; while Walter, with
apparent calmness, added a few remarks; and, soothed by his sister's
voice, he soon appeared to recover, and Mr Shobbrok had no
apprehensions about him. The mate told him to lie down and rest, which
he at once did. The raft being on the lee side of the whale, he and Nub
then hoisted the sail.

"Oh, Massa Shobbrok, we have forgotten de harpoons!" exclaimed Nub.

"So we have," answered the mate. "In my anxiety about Walter I forgot
them."

"Den I go up and get dem," said Nub; and he again climbed up the side of
the whale. He had lowered down a couple of harpoons and three spears,
when the mate, who had in the meantime cast off the lines which had
secured the raft to the whale, in his anxiety to lose no time, sprang up
to pull out another spear which had been fixed nearer the tail; Alice,
who was standing near him, taking hold of the line still attached to it.
At that moment, from some unknown cause, the monster body began to
move, and before either the mate or Nub could descend, over it rolled;
while Alice, in her terror still holding on to the line, was lifted from
her feet and dragged into the water. The sail, no longer under the lee
of the huge carcass, filled, and away glided the raft, leaving the poor
little girl, with the mate and Nub at some distance from her, struggling
in the water.

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Note 1. The author confesses