It is very likely, even in the light of our later knowledge of the Annie Battles, that they were not up to anything in particular, and did not want anything except to plague us, and exasperate us, and set us all to wondering just as they were doing. At sea, on a long voyage, with a faster vessel, and the certainty of being able to sail around us in any weather, that exasperation could be carried to a high pitch. We had no means of knowing what was going on in the Battles; but, all this granted, I could not guess their motive. It was possible that they were after our whales, but Captain Coffin was an able whaling master, and if that was the explanation—I put the question to Peter. “Oh, no, lad,” he replied quickly. “If that was the reason, they ’d just stay with us—dog us about. They don’t do that, but—Aye, aye, sir.” For Mr. Baker had come up to us, and was telling Peter to go to his boat, but not to hurry. They did not want any stir on the decks. Then he passed on to tell others of his crew the same thing. Mr. Macy was strolling about the deck on a similar errand. One by one the men drifted down to their boats, cast off the lashings, and stood with the falls in their hands, ready to lower. The Battles was still coming on, headed directly for us. She was a mile away, and the men stood like statues by their boats; the distance diminished to a half-mile and then to a quarter. There was a deep silence on the ship, while the noise of the surgeons at the operating-table rose to us over the starboard rail. They knew nothing of the Battles. When the schooner {201} was a cable’s length away she was still heading directly for us, and seemed likely to strike us amidships. It was too much for Mr. Baker. “Ahoy, there!” he roared. “Damn you, do you want to run us down?” “Are you there?” cried a jeering voice from the Battles. “Why don’t you lower?” As the sound of the voice reached us, however, the Battles kept off a little, so that she would just clear our stern. Captain Nelson nodded, and Mr. Macy lowered instantly, cast off, and the men pulled hard to intercept her. They did not quite succeed in doing that, and the Battles swept by with her main chains about six inches beyond the utmost reach of Hall’s boathook. Hall made an instant decision. Throwing down the boathook, he grabbed a harpoon, to which the whale line was already bent, and darted with all his force at the chains of the Battles. The harpoon stuck in the hull and quivered there for a moment, between the chains; then, as strain came on it, it pulled out, having nothing to hold it, the barb caught on the chains, and there they were towing as comfortably as ever they did behind a whale.