Mr. Macy’s boat, with George Hall the boat-steerer, had an exactly similar experience. Mr. Macy had not headed that boat long enough to overcome entirely the effect of Wallet’s slackness and generally slipshod way of doing things, and his crew did not respond quite so quickly or so well. Consequently his whale had just enough warning to begin to move, but not enough time to get under way, or to find out definitely what was up. His only escape was to sink from the head of the boat as quickly as a marlinspike that has been dropped overboard, or an anchor. Hall, however, had no chance to dart, and he had had experience enough to know it. We did not see those whales again except at a distance which was perfectly safe, and then they were swimming head out, making ten or twelve knots. Later in the day I came upon a sort of a consolation gathering. Starbuck and the Prince and George Hall were the central figures, and there were the other two boatsteerers, Azevedo and Miller, and all the green hands standing on the fringe of the circle, with two or three older men. Starbuck was much mortified at his failure, and offered what excuse he could. The Prince may have been as much mortified as Starbuck, but he offered no excuse and said little. Hall was giving comfort, saying that it was not uncommon for whales to settle in that way, and escape, when they had no time to round out flukes and sound, although he did not see how they did it. No harpooner was to be blamed for missing a whale under those circumstances. Then there was a babel of voices, each man who had seen it happen and thought about it at all—a man could hardly help thinking about it if he had once seen {197} it—giving his own theory of how it was done. They seemed to run to the idea of interior ballast tanks. Hall smiled. “It does not seem quite quick enough,” he said. “The whale would have to take in water ballast pretty sudden to sink as quick as he does. Besides, water won’t sink in water. If he could take in lead or old junk into his tanks, it would be different. I know that gannets have something like that, cells under the skin that they can fill or empty of air through their lungs; and man-o’-war birds have something of the kind, I believe, and so have other birds. I ’ve seen ’em and you ’ve all seen ’em. They seem to contract when they want to get down pretty quick. But I don’t pretend to know how a whale does it.” There was more talk which I could not follow. After a while Azevedo asked Hall about what he called the “slick” or “glip,” and how he thought that communication was kept up. I did not know what they were talking about, of course. Hall shook his head, and said he had never seen any evidence of communication, although he had heard of it, but he would not commit himself on the subject, and he asked Peter. Peter said that he did not know anything about it. “What is that, Peter?” I asked in an undertone. “What ’s glip?” I knew what a slick was.