Mr. Brown and Mr. Tilton then lowered, but they did not hurry about it, for the whale had gone down less than a mile from the ship, and it was likely that he would stay down for an hour. We pulled to the spot we had chosen as the most likely, and waited, occasionally pulling a few strokes to hold our position. Mr. Tilton was a quarter of a mile away. While we waited, the ship worked up past us, and got about a quarter of a mile directly to windward of us. Mr. Tilton guessed nearer than Mr. Brown. The whale rose beyond Mr. Tilton’s boat, coming up on a half-breach. We heard the tremendous splash of it, and saw Mr. Tilton’s men begin to pull; then we began to pull, and I saw no more of what was going on except the oars and the backs of the men directly before my eyes, and Mr. Brown’s unexpressive face, as he stood at the steering oar. We chased that whale for nearly two hours before Azevedo had a chance to strike. Then I saw Mr. Brown’s face light up. “White water!” he said. “He ’s fast.” I, for one, was glad. It is no play to pull a whaleboat into the teeth of such a sea and wind as there was then. “She spouts thin blood,” he added, a moment later. “Sounded.” We took it easy after that, and soon came up with Mr. Tilton. The whale had sounded out all his line before we got there, and the ship was hull down to leeward, but coming as fast as she could. There was nothing to do but to wait. The whale must have gone down at a terrific rate, and he had gone straight {307} down, for he came up in fifteen or twenty minutes, and a short distance ahead of us. We pulled frantically. Just as I saw the huge body beginning to show at the corner of my eye, half awash, the Prince darted with all his strength, both irons, with great rapidity. At the same moment Mr. Brown hove mightily upon the steering oar, to lay the boat around, crying out to the Prince to take the lance to him. The boat responded, and for a brief interval we ran with the whale, the starboard oars against the gunwale, and I trying my best to get in the slack of the line before we began to fall astern, while Kane held my oar for me. The Prince had seized a lance almost before Mr. Brown had got the words out of his mouth, and had plunged it twice into the whale. Mr. Brown had given another twist to the steering oar, and we sheered off just as the flukes struck the water with a noise like a big gun and the effect of a cataract. I had let go the line and grabbed my oar again, and we just did get out of the way as the whale sounded, with a side cut of flukes.