scheme, of any people I ever met. But they seemed to
know all about heaven, and were, no doubt, happy.

After the brief, friendly chat that we had, coffee was passed around,
the probabilities of the _Liberdade's_ voyage discussed, and the crew
cautioned against the dangers of the _balaena_ (whale), which were
numerous along the coast, and vicious at that season of the year, having
their young to protect.

I realized very often the startling sensation alone of a night at the
helm, of having a painful stillness broken by these leviathans bursting
the surface of the water with a noise like the roar of a great sea,
uncomfortably near, reminding me of the Cape Frio adventure; and my
crew, I am sure, were not less sensitive to the same feeling of an awful
danger, however imaginary. One night in particular, dark and foggy I
remember, Victor called me excitedly, saying that something dreadful
ahead and drawing rapidly near had frightened him.

It proved to be a whale, for some reason that I could only guess at,
threshing the sea with its huge body, and surging about in all
directions, so that it puzzled me to know which way to steer to go
clear. I thought at first, from the rumpus made, that a fight was going
on, such as we had once witnessed from the deck of the _Aquidneck_, not
far from this place. Our course was changed as soon as we could decide
which way to avoid, if possible, all marine disturbers of the peace. We
wished especially to keep away from infuriated swordfish, which I feared
might be darting about, and be apt to give us a blind thrust. Knowing
that they sometimes pierce stout ships through with their formidable
weapons, I began to feel ticklish about the ribs myself, I confess, and
the little watch below, too, got uneasy and sleepless; for one of these
swords, they knew well, would reach through and through our little boat,
from keel to deck. Large ships have occasionally been sent into port
leaky from the stab of a sword, but what I most dreaded was the
possibility of one of us being ourselves pinned in the boat.

A swordfish once pierced a whale-ship through the planking, and through
the solid frame timber and the thick ceiling, with his sword, leaving it
there, a valuable plug indeed, with the point, it was found upon
unshipping her cargo at New Bedford, even piercing through a cask in the
hold.

CHAPTER XII

Sail from Frio--Round Cape St. Thome--High seas and swift
currents--In the "t