We lowered in pursuit of a school of small whales, no large one having been seen among them before we left the ship. The whales in some way took the alarm before we got up to them, and when the mate called me up, they had all gone down but one cow with a small calf. I drew back my iron for a dart, but the cow had already pitched, and was too far from me to make a safe thing of it. "Strike the calf!" said Mr. Grafton; and, with a twinge of conscience at the cruelty of the deed, I threw an iron at the infant whale, who seemed hardly able to carry it off in his back. However, down he went, and we gave him line freely, as we were fearful of drawing the iron. We felt pretty sure that when he rose again, we should have a chance at the mother; and that chance was good of the rest of the school "bringing to." In such a case, we might get a good "cut" of oil, by striking a whale which, alone, was of little or no value. He had "sounded out" forty or fifty fathoms of line, when the strain suddenly relaxed, and the line hung slack. "We are loose!" cried the mate, "haul in line!" then shouted to the other two boats, who were hovering near us, to "Pull ahead!" They sprang to their oars to take the next chance at the school when they should rise, while we gathered in our stray line quite leisurely. Presently our line seemed to be foul of something, which offered a strange kind of resistance to our efforts; it did not bring up firmly, but seemed to be grating or chafing against something, so that we still gained on it, though making slow progress.
"I don't know," said Father Grafton. "I can't account for the line acting this way." Just then there was another heavy surge upon it, then that peculiar grating and slipping, and we got in two or three more fathoms of it. "Something is under us," said he. "Slack line and stand by your oars!"
We slacked away and sterned off a little. Presently there was a commotion and lifting of the sea as it were, close ahead of us, and with a roar as he broke water, the ponderous "junk" of a "ninety-barreller" was forced up into view; he straightened, showing us his vast breadth of beam, and then with a thundering flap of his immense flukes upon the water, which half-drowned us all in the spray, he started to windward, towing us after him! Astonishment held us all mute for a moment, but the mate, seeing that he was fairly "harnessed," soon recovered his usual coolness.