able,
she will be partner with us. All shall share that lend a hand, and never
a one else. So you, Master Factor, shall be busy as well as other folk,
and think yourself lucky to share like other folk. Jump into that boat"
(for the boats had by this time pulled round the headland), "and you, my
lads, make way for the factor in the stern-sheets--he shall be the first
man this day that shall strike the fish."

The three boats destined for this perilous service now approached the
dark mass, which lay like an islet in the deepest part of the voe,
and suffered them to approach without showing any sign of animation.
Silently, and with such precaution as the extreme delicacy of the
operation required, the intrepid adventurers, after the failure of their
first attempt, and the expenditure of considerable time, succeeded in
casting a cable around the body of the torpid monster, and in carrying
the ends of it ashore, when a hundred hands were instantly employed in
securing them. But ere this was accomplished, the tide began to make
fast, and the Udaller informed his assistants that either the fish must
be killed or at least greatly wounded ere the depth of water on the bar
was sufficient to float him; or that he was not unlikely to escape from
their joint prowess.

"Wherefore," said he, "we must set to work, and the factor shall have
the honour to make the first throw."

The valiant Triptolemus caught the word; and it is necessary to say that
the patience of the whale, in suffering himself to be noosed without
resistance, had abated his terrors, and very much lowered the creature
in his opinion. He protested the fish had no more wit, and scarcely more
activity, than a black snail; and, influenced by this undue contempt
of the adversary, he waited neither for a farther signal, nor a better
weapon, nor a more suitable position, but, rising in his energy, hurled
his graip with all his force against the unfortunate monster. The boats
had not yet retreated from him to the distance necessary to ensure
safety, when this injudicious commencement of the war took place.

Magnus Troil, who had only jested with the factor, and had reserved the
launching the first spear against the whale to some much more skilful
hand, had just time to exclaim, "Mind yourselves, lads, or we are all
stamped!" when the monster, roused at once from inactivity by the blow
of the factor's missile, blew, with a noise resembling the explosion of
a steam-engine,