before, but on the opposite side of the boat, throwing itself half out
of the water as it rose: again it commenced lashing the sea violently,
as if in the mere wanton display of its terrible strength, until far
around, the water was one wide sheet of foam. The calves still
gambolled near us, chasing each other about and under the yawl, and we
might easily have killed one of them, had we not been deterred by the
almost certain consequences of arousing the fury of the old whale.
Meantime, the entire school seemed to be edging down towards us. There
was not a breath of air, and we had no means of getting out of the way
of the danger, to which we should be exposed, if among them, except by
taking to the oars; and this, nothing short of the most pressing and
immediate peril could induce us to do. But our attention was soon
withdrawn from the herd, to the singular and alarming movements of the
individual near us. Rushing along the surface for short distances, it
threw itself several times half clear of the water, turning after each
of these leaps, as abruptly as its unwieldy bulk would permit, and
running a tilt with equal violence in the opposite direction. Once, it
passed so near us, that I think I could have touched it with an oar, and
we saw distinctly its small, dull eye, and the loose, wrinkled, folds of
skin, about its tremendous jaws. For a minute afterwards, the boat
rolled dangerously in the swell caused by the swift passage of so vast
an object. Suddenly, after one of these abrupt turns, the monster
headed directly towards us, and came rushing onward with fearful
velocity, either not noticing us at all, or else mistaking the boat for
some sea-creature, with which it designed to measure its strength.
There was no time for any effort to avoid the danger; and even had there
been, we were too much paralysed by its imminence, to make such an
effort. The whale was scarcely twelve yards off--certainly not twenty.
Behind it stretched a foaming wake, straight as an arrow. Its vast
mountainous head ploughed up the waves like a ship's cutwater, piling
high the foam and spray before it. To miss us was now a sheer
impossibility and no earthly power could arrest the creature's career.
Instant destruction appeared inevitable. I grew dizzy, and my head
began to swim, while the thought flashed confusedly through my mind,
that infinite wisdom had decreed that we must die, and this manner of
perishing had been chosen in merc