"Don't mind him, Jack; he is not coming on board."
For a full minute he floated in the water, keeping pace with the brig, to the great admiration of our old Orkney whaleman, Hans, and then sank slowly down--down far below. We could see his vast bulk shining as he passed _under_ us, and came up on our other side, so close that he almost grazed the copper of the _Leda_.
This monster of the deep was nearly as large, at least as long, as the brig, and his aspect was calculated to inspire awe in those who were less familiar than we now were with the denizens of the sea.
He was a common whale, and the head being, as usual, out of all proportion, was one-third the entire size of the fish, while the eyes were no larger than those of an ox. The smooth and slippery skin, from which the foam dripped, was mottled; and it--or _he_, as we named him--swam not as whales generally do, _against_ the wind, but with us.
Our friend was evidently in a playful mood, as he repeatedly rose and sank, plunged and surged up on each side of the _Leda_ alternately, and twice grazed our rudder.
"He smells the blubber and sealskins aboard, sir," said Hans Peterkin, "and they make him frolicsome, you see."
"Look out, sir!" added Reeves, who was in the mainchains; "by Jove, he'll be foul of us in his next gambol!"
"And we may have our rudder unshipped--I don't like this at all," replied Hartly. "Cuffy, bring me a sealing-gun, with powder and a handful of slugs."
In half a minute Hartly stood in the boat at the stern davits, with the long gun loaded and charged with ten square junks of lead, each larger than a rifle ball. Then, just as the whale, for the fifth or sixth time rose under the stern, he fired.
The whole charge entered one of the great spiracles, or blow-holes, which are situated in the middle of the head, about sixteen feet from the nose, and through which this fish can spout to a vast height when wounded or annoyed. The moment the gun was fired, our whale sunk like a stone.
"There he goes, for ever I hope!" cried Hartly.
"We have not seen the last of him, sir," said old Hans, as he got astride the boom of the fore-and-aft mainsail in his excitement to see the whale again; "he has a long way to go _down_, before he'll come up again. Why, Lord love you, sir, I have known them in the sound of Yell, when struck by a harpoon, descend head-foremost for eight hundred fathoms, (at the rate of eight knots an hour, till the line in the bowpost smoked, ay, blazed with friction,) and then come up with their jawbones broken, by running foul of a rock at the bottom. That one has gone down fully four hundred fathoms."