"That's a killer!" cried old Tom. "He'll not let go the whale till he has him in his flurry, and then he and his mates will make a feast of him. They have great strong teeth, bigger than a shark's, and are the most voracious fish I ever saw. They bait a whale just as dogs do a wild beast, or a bull, and seldom fail to kill him if they once get hold of him." This killer had a long dorsal fin, and a brown back and white belly. On came the whale and the fish, twisting and turning as before. We all stood ready to try and send them off--though very little use that would have been, I own. Happily they floundered by just astern of the ship; but so violent were their movements, and by such a mass of foam and blood were they surrounded, that it was difficult to observe the appearance of the killer. Equally impossible would it have been to have approached the whale to harpoon him without an almost certainty of losing the boat and the lives of all her crew. We could, therefore, only hope that the whale might be conquered when still within sight, so that the boats might carry off the prize from the relentless killer. Away went the monster and his tormentor. Soon we could no longer distinguish them from the deck; but on going aloft, we again caught sight of them, still floundering on as before. "That fish gives us a lesson of what pertinacity will accomplish, even in conquering the greatest of difficulties," observed Newman, laughing. "I admire the way in which he sticks to his object. He has made up his mind to kill the whale, and kill the whale he will." "Ay, and eat him too, Ned, as he deserves," said old Knowles. "Some of us might learn a lesson from that fish, I'm thinking." "I have been killing whales all my life," Newman remarked to me with a forced laugh. "But somehow or other, Jack, I never have found out how to eat them." "Overcoming difficulties, but not benefiting by them!" said I. "There must be a fault somewhere." "Ay, Jack, ay--a fault in myself, and a curse well-deserved," he answered, bitterly, and then was silent. I never before had heard him speak in that way, and I did not venture to ask for an explanation. That saying of Newman became common ever afterwards on board, when we saw a man determined to do a thing--"Kill the whale he will!" I have often thought since, how seldom sailors, especially, learn to eat whales. What sums of money they make and throw carelessly away!--amply sufficient to enable them to pass the end of their days in comfort on shore, or to provide respectably for their families, instead, as is often the case with the merchant-seaman, ending their days in a poor-house, or leaving their families to the cold charity of the world. Brother seamen, learn wisdom! Prepare for the future of this life; and, more than all, prepare for the life to come.