ough ash oars with
strength and determination. There was no need for the dreadful oaths
and blasphemies with which Captain Lucy and his officers assailed their
ears, or his threats of punishment should they fail to catch up the
mate's boat and miss killing the two "loose" whales; the prospect of
such a prize was all the incentive the seamen needed. With set teeth
and panting bosoms they urged the boats along, and presently they were
encouraged by a cry from the third mate, who called out to the captain
and second mate that the wounded whale was slackening his speed, and Mr.
Brant was "hauling up alongside to give him the lance." In another
fifty strokes the captain and the two officers saw the great head of
the creature that was dragging the mate's boat along again appear on the
surface, and on each side were his devoted cetacean companions, who were
almost of as monstrous a size as the bull himself.

With savage oaths the captain urged his crew to fresh exertions, for
just then he saw the mate go for'ard in his boat and plunge his keen
lance of shining steel into his prize, then back his boat off as the
agonised whale again sounded into the blue depths below, with his
life-blood pouring from him in a bubbling stream.

II.

On board the _Shawnee_ the progress of the boats was watched amid the
most intense excitement; and even the imprisoned seamen, in their foul
and horrible prison, stretched their wearied and manacled limbs and
sought to learn by the sounds on deck whether any or all of the boats
were "fast"--that is, had harpooned a whale. Broken-spirited and
exhausted as they were by long days of cruel and undeserved punishment,
they would have forgotten their miseries in an instant had the fourth
mate ordered them on deck to lower his boat--the only one remaining on
board--and join their shipmates in the other boats in the chase. But of
this they knew there was little prospect, for this remaining boat had
been seriously injured by a heavy sea, which had washed her inboard
a few days before the fight between the officers and crew. Presently,
however, they heard the hurried stamping of feet on deck, and then the
voices of the fourth mate and cooper giving orders to take in sail.

"Jerry," said a young English lad named Wray, to the elder Rodman, "do
you hear that? One of the boats must have got 'fast' and killed. We'll
be out of this in another half-hour, cutting-in. The captain won't
let us lie here when th