The ship rounded to as easily as one of the boats would have done, only about her own length from the whale. And the mate with a triumphant roar of ‘Give way, m’lads!’ steered for her, no man prouder than he of the way in which his ‘greenies’ had acquitted themselves on their maiden venture. The grizzled leonine head of the skipper loomed in the waist, where, the boards out, all was in readiness to receive them. And as ready hands hooked up the tow-line, and prepared to walk up alongside the huge mass of their prize, he said to the mate standing beneath him erect in the stern of the boat: ‘Wall, Mr. Pease, yew du seem t’ hev got on t’ a logy this time. I sh’d say he’s all ov a hundred an’ forty bar’l be his look, ’less he’s dry-skin.’ ‘Nary dry-skin ’baout him, Cap’n Hampden,’ replied the mate, cheerfully. ‘He’s jest a-teemin’ outer him. Iron went in’s if it hed fell into a kag er butter. Fattes’ whale ever I struck, ’n’ thet’s the cole truth, sir.’
Then with a joyful noise all hands tallied on to the tow-line, and snaked that whale alongside in great shape. Everything had been prepared for the arrival, cutting falls rove, spades ranged, cutting stage ready, and although the experience was absolutely novel to most of the men, they were so keen, so eager to do as they were told to the best of their ability, that really I doubt whether the most seasoned crew could have made a better show than they did. And this in spite of the almost feverish desire possessed by all to look upon the gigantic prize they had won in fair fight from his appointed realm, the vasty deep. It was all so wonderful, so new, so strange. And then in hurried glimpses they saw coming up in the clear blue around hosts of queer-looking creatures (to them, for none of the new hands had ever seen a shark before). One fellow, a lank Kentuckian, in a stolen moment remarked in a stage whisper to a shipmate, as they leaned over the rail hauling at the fluke-chain, ‘Gosh! look’t all them little fish daown thar.’ Said little fish, rising rapidly, presently revealed themselves as sharks averaging ten feet in length, who, regardless of consequences, hurled themselves end-ways at the whale’s body, and gouged at it furiously, as if driven mad by hunger.