roft threw down his ax, and Harding and Neb joining
their companions, all rushed towards the scene of action.

The stranding had taken place on the beach of Flotsam Point, three miles
from Granite House, and at high tide. It was therefore probable that the
cetacean would not be able to extricate itself easily; at any rate it
was best to hasten, so as to cut off its retreat if necessary. They ran
with pick-axes and iron-tipped poles in their hands, passed over the
Mercy bridge, descended the right bank of the river, along the beach,
and in less than twenty minutes the settlers were close to the enormous
animal, above which flocks of birds already hovered.

"What a monster!" cried Neb.

And the exclamation was natural, for it was a southern whale, eighty
feet long, a giant of the species, probably not weighing less than a
hundred and fifty thousand pounds!

In the meanwhile, the monster thus stranded did not move, nor attempt by
struggling to regain the water while the tide was still high.

It was dead, and a harpoon was sticking out of its left side.

"There are whalers in these quarters, then?" said Gideon Spilett
directly.

"Oh, Mr. Spilett, that doesn't prove anything!" replied Pencroft.
"Whales have been known to go thousands of miles with a harpoon in
the side, and this one might even have been struck in the north of the
Atlantic and come to die in the south of the Pacific, and it would be
nothing astonishing."

Pencroft, having torn the harpoon from the animal's side, read this
inscription on it:

MARIA STELLA, VINEYARD

"A vessel from the Vineyard! A ship from my country!" he cried. "The
'Maria Stella!' A fine whaler, 'pon my word; I know her well! Oh, my
friends, a vessel from the Vineyard!--a whaler from the Vineyard!"

And the sailor brandishing the harpoon, repeated, not without emotion,
the name which he loved so well--the name of his birthplace.

But as it could not be expected that the "Maria Stella" would come to
reclaim the animal harpooned by her, they resolved to begin cutting it
up before decomposition should commence. The birds, who had watched
this rich prey for several days, had determined to take possession of it
without further delay, and it was necessary to drive them off by firing
at them repeatedly.

The whale was a female, and a large quantity of milk was taken from it,
which, according to the opinion of the naturalist Duffenbach, might pass
for cow's milk, and,