Mr. Brown said nothing—there was nothing to say—and the whale proceeded to turn fin out without any flurry at all. Mr. Baker then set his lights to signal the ship, and she bore down upon us. It was a long, hard job getting that whale alongside in the pitch darkness and the heavy sea, and it was not done and the men on board until very late in the evening. Even then it was not done, we found. Lying hove to, as we were, the ship forging ahead a little, with a very heavy sea running, she would bring up, at every roll, with a tremendous jerk on the fluke chain. At last the chain parted—shackle pin snapped—and the carcass began to drift away. It was Mr. Macy’s watch, and he sprang quickly into the quarter boat, bent the line {337} to an iron, and struck as the body drifted beneath him. He checked it with the line, and managed to get another iron in, fast to a second line, before it had drifted out of reach. Then the lines were paid out to their whole length, and the spring of the lines held the carcass until sunrise. In the morning we had all our work to do over again, but we got the blubber hove aboard before sunset. The whale made sixty-five barrels. While we were trying-out that whale we raised another pod or small school. It was early in the afternoon. The wind had gone down somewhat, but was still strong, and the whales were basking lazily on the surface, laying flukes and fins. That sounds as if they were a flock of hens, curiously occupied. They were pretty near, although not close aboard, and it was too much for the captain, for these were large whales. Captain Nelson was getting more excited as the ship got more nearly filled up, and as he saw the abundance of large whales. It seemed to give him a physical pain to realize that here was a fortune at his hand, and he could not take it away. He could be depended upon to come to the same place the next voyage, but somebody else might get there first. In this case he called away every man that could be spared, and lowered two boats.