ging all around
them, nothing remained but an all-pervading, thunderous hum, causing
the deck to vibrate beneath them, and high overhead the jagged, leaden
remnants of twisted, tortured cloud whirling past their tiny oblong of
sky. Just a minute's suspension of all faculties but wonder, then, in
one spontaneous, heartfelt note of genuine admiration, all hands burst
into a cheer that even overtopped the mighty rumble of the baffled sea.

Here they lay, perfectly secure, and cut in their whale as if in dock;
then at the first opportunity they ran out, with fearful difficulty, a
kedge with a whale-line attached, by which means they warped the vessel
out of her hiding-place--a far more arduous operation than getting in
had been. But even this did not exhaust the wonders of that occasion.
They had hardly got way upon her, beginning to draw out from the land,
when the eagle-eye of one of the Maories detected the carcass of a
whale rolling among the breakers about half a mile to the westward.
Immediately a boat was lowered, a double allowance of line put into
her, and off they went to the valuable flotsam. Dangerous in the highest
degree was the task of getting near enough to drive harpoons into the
body; but it was successfully accomplished, the line run on board, and
the prize hauled triumphantly alongside. This was the whale they had now
brought in. We shrewdly suspected that it must have been one of those
abandoned by the unfortunate vessels who had fled, but etiquette forbade
us saying anything about it. Even had it been, another day would have
seen it valueless to any one, for it was by no means otto of roses to
sniff at now, while they had certainly salved it at the peril of their
lives.

When we returned on board and repeated the story, great was the
amazement. Such a feat of seamanship was almost beyond belief; but we
were shut up to believing, since in no other way could the vessel's
miraculous escape be accounted for. The little, dumpy, red-faced figure,
rigged like any scarecrow, that now stood on his cutting-stage, punching
away vigorously at the fetid mass of blubber beneath him, bore no
outward visible sign of a hero about him; but in our eyes he was
transfigured--a being to be thought of reverently, as one who in all
those dualities that go to the making of a man had proved himself of the
seed royal, a king of men, all the more kingly because unconscious that
his deeds were of so exalted an order.

I am afra