"'I should have been asphyxiated in five minutes.' "'Who is it that speaks?' I faltered. 'Leviathan, king of the sea, be merciful!' "'I am called _New England Tom_ by the creatures of the upper element,' answered the whale, 'although falsely thought to be of the family of the Spermaceti; but though my exploits have recommended me to my species, I am not equal to the high title you have given me. _That_ is possessed by you and our sovereign Jonah only!' "The conviction rushed upon me that I had, indeed, 'dominion over the fish'! "'I have suffered this wound for your majesty's sake,' said the whale again; 'for I had been deputed to wait in this latitude for your arrival, and convey you to our sovereign. But though I am now in the third century of my age, I can survive a dozen such prickings, and if I chose could shiver the Crimson Dragon with a blow of my tail, as in 1804 I stove the Essex, and made driftwood of her spars.' "In an instant I was seated within the mighty maw of this famous monster. His jaw-bones were forty feet in length; the roof of his mouth was fifteen feet high, and formed of a spacious arch of 'balleen,' or whale-bone. His crescent-shaped tail, thirty-five feet from tip to tip, swept the depths twice or thrice; and when we emerged into the air, the blood spouted from his pores, and he threw cataracts of water through his spiracle. I saw the Crimson Dragon some miles away, but there were no traces of her boats. The crews of the launches were fathoms deep in the ocean!