The boats, by this time, had got very near the place where I had last seen the spouts, but there were none to be seen now, and all boats except Mr. Wallet’s had taken in their sails, and lay rocking and waiting for the whales to come up. Mr. Wallet was still a long way behind, for even the wind seemed to help all the others more than it did him. I had my glass to my eyes, and I saw a gentle commotion in the water beyond Mr. Brown’s boat, then another beyond Mr. Baker’s, and almost instantly two spouts arose, very close to the boats, and the men took to their oars with a will. As the whales had just come up, {59} and had had no chance to breathe more than once or twice, to say nothing of having their spoutings out, they could not go down again, or if they did, they could stay down but a few minutes. This was just the condition the men had been waiting for, and they took full advantage of it. I could see Macy, the boatsteerer in Mr. Baker’s boat,—the boatsteerer rows the bow oar,—take in his oar, face about toward the bow, and stand up. He fitted his thigh into the thigh-hole in the cleat, took the first harpoon from the crotch, and poised it in his two hands, leaning far forward. The chance that he was waiting for came in a few seconds, and he darted the harpoon with all his strength; instantly seized the second harpoon from the crotch, and threw that as the first one struck. I had hardly been able to see the whale, as there was but little of him out of water, and that little only an indistinguishable dark mound; but immediately upon feeling the irons in him, he raised his flukes high in air, and brought them down upon the surface with a tremendous crash. They missed the boat, for the men had been backing water with all their might, but the miss was by a small margin, and the boat and the men in it were deluged with water. Then the boatsteerer made his way aft, and took the steering oar, and Mr. Baker went forward and selected his lance. He had no chance to use it while they were in sight, however, for the whale set off for the horizon at great speed, “head out,” the efforts of the powerful flukes making his whole body undulate, so that his head was alternately entirely buried in the sea, and almost completely exposed, the narrow under-jaw serving as a cutwater. The last I saw of that boat, Macy, the boatsteerer, stood at the steering oar, keeping the boat straight behind the fleeing whale, while he tried to snub the whale line completely by taking more turns around the loggerhead. A thin wreath of blue smoke was rising from the loggerhead, and one of the men was throwing {60} water by the hatful upon it. The boat was throwing a sheet of water on each side of her bow, almost like a stream from a fire hose.