By hard pulling we got right in the course of the whales, Mr. Baker and ourselves taking the farther one, and Mr. Macy the nearer. Our whale was a little in advance of the other. Then we waited, our oars in our hands, to be ready for any change of course of the whales. Approaching a {195} whale head on is one of the favorite ways, for a whale cannot see anything directly ahead of him, strange and inconvenient as that may seem. The whales came on in a business-like way, rising to spout, then pitching under, until they were perhaps within fifty or sixty feet of the boats. The Prince was all set to strike, and the four oarsmen gripping their oars hard, I, at least, with my nerves on edge. Then the whales brought up suddenly; stopped as completely as if they had run into a wall. Something had excited their suspicion, although the men in the boats were as still as death. Our whale—I should not have called him ours so soon—raised his head from the water, as if listening, and Mr. Baker and Mr. Brown signalled the men to pull up. It was only a little way, and the two boats almost leaped from the water. I could see nothing of the whale, pulling, as I was, with my back to him, and my eyes glued to the oar of the man in front of me, but I could imagine that whale pricking up his ears, if he had had any. Mr. Baker’s boat was just abeam of us, to take him on his other side. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the men in her laying to it, and the spray flying from her bow. It is utterly useless to dart the harpoon at the front of a sperm whale. The weapon almost always bounds back as if it were a mass of rubber it had struck against. We had to get as far as his eye before a chance would be offered. I saw his great cliff-like head shoot by. Then, as we came within range of his vision, within ten feet of him, he suddenly sank away from the boat and out of sight like a lump of lead, without a motion of his fins, or his flukes either, so far as I could judge by hearing. The Prince had darted, and so had Starbuck—and had missed by inches, at ten feet. It was comical to see the consternation and amazement of Starbuck, and I have no doubt the Prince’s surprise was nearly as great, although he would not show it so plainly. I did hear a grunt from him, however, and an exclamation. The harpoons had clashed under {196} water. When they were hauled in, the Prince found the shank of his bent, and a gouge, fresh and bright, deep in the shank at the point of bending; and the edge of Starbuck’s was dulled and turned.