h the sealing-master had wished us. No, an
enormous blower had come alongside the schooner, and almost on the
instant a spout of ill-smelling water was ejected from its blow-hole
with a noise like a distant roar of artillery. The whole foredeck to
the main hatch was inundated.

"That's well done!" growled Hearne, shrugging his shoulders,
while his companions shook themselves and cursed the humpback.

Besides these two kinds of cetacea we had observed several
right-whales, and these are the most usually met with in the
southern seas. They have no fins, and their blubber is very thick.
The taking of these fat monsters of the deep is not attended with
much danger. The right-whales are vigorously pursued in the southern
seas, where the little shell fish called "whales' food"
abound. The whales subsist entirely upon these small crustaceans.

Presently, one of these right-whales, measuring sixty feet in
length--that is to say, the animal was the equivalent of a hundred
barrels of oil--was seen floating within three cables' lengths of
the schooner.

"Yes! that's a right-whale," exclaimed Hearne. "You might
tell it by its thick, short spout. See, that one on the port side,
like a column of smoke, that's the spout of a right-whale! And all
this is passing before our very noses---a dead loss! Why, it's
like emptying money-bags into the sea not to fill one's barrels
when one can. A nice sort of captain, indeed, to let all this
merchandise be lost, and do such wrong to his crew!"

"Hearne," said an imperious voice, "go up to the maintop. You
will be more at your ease there to reckon the whales."

"But, sir--"

"No reply, or I'll keep you up there until to-morrow. Come--be
off at once."

And as he would have got the worst of an attempt at resistance, the
sealing-master obeyed in silence.

The season must have been abnormally advanced, for although we
continued to see a vast number of testaceans, we did not catch sight
of a single whaling-ship in all this fishing-ground.

I hasten to state that, although we were not to be tempted by
whales, no other fishing was forbidden on board the _Halbrane_, and
our daily bill of fare profited by the boatswain's trawling lines,
to the extreme satisfaction of stomachs weary of salt meat. Our
lines brought us goby, salmon, cod, mackerel, conger, mullet, and
parrot-fish.

The birds which we saw, and which came from every point of the
horizon, were those I have already mentioned, petr