Suddenly the mate gave a howl: "Starn all--starn all! oh, starn!" and the oars bent like canes as we obeyed. 20 There was an upheaval of the sea just ahead; then slowly, majestically, the vast body of our foe rose into the air. Up, up it went, while my heart stood still, until the whole of that immense creature hung on high, apparently motionless, and then fell--a hundred tons of solid flesh--back 25 into the sea. On either side of that mountainous mass the waters rose in shining towers of snowy foam which fell in their turn, whirling and eddying around us as we tossed and fell like a chip in a whirlpool. Blinded by the flying spray, bailing for very life to free the boat from the water with 30 which she was nearly full, it was some minutes before I was able to decide whether we were still uninjured or not. Then I saw, at a little distance, the whale lying quietly. As I looked he spouted, and the vapor was red with his blood.
"Starn all!" again cried our chief, and we retreated to a considerable distance. The old warrior's practiced eye had detected the coming climax of our efforts, the dying agony, 5 or "flurry," of the great mammal. Turning upon his side he began to move in a circular direction, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until he was rushing round at tremendous speed, his great head raised quite out of water at times, clashing his enormous jaws. Torrents of blood 10 poured from his spout hole, accompanied by hoarse bellowings as of some gigantic bull, but really caused by the laboring breath trying to pass through the clogged air passages. The utmost caution and rapidity of manipulation of the boat was necessary to avoid his maddened 15 rush, but this gigantic energy was short-lived. In a few minutes he subsided slowly in death, his mighty body reclined on one side, the fin uppermost waving limply as he rolled to the swell, while the small waves broke gently over the carcass in a low, monotonous surf, intensifying the 20 profound silence that had succeeded the tumult of our conflict with the late monarch of the deep.
1. Boats were always lowered when whales were sighted within rowing distance. Why? How many were lowered in this instance? How many men were in each? Who was in command of each?
