But, however obtained, our reprieve from danger was only momentary. The whale came to the surface at no great distance, and once more headed towards us. If frightened for an instant, it had quickly recovered from the panic, and now there was no mistaking the creature's purpose: it came on, exhibiting every mark of rage, and with jaws literally wide open. We felt that no device or effort of our own could be of any avail. We might as well hope to resist a tempest, or an earthquake, or the shock of a falling mountain, as that immense mass of matter, instinct with life and power, and apparently animated by brute fury. Every hope had vanished, and I think that we were all in a great measure resigned to death, and fully expecting it when there came, (as it seemed to us, by actual miracle), a most wonderful interposition. A dark, bulky mass, (in the utter bewilderment of the moment we noted nothing distinctly of its appearance), shot perpendicularly from the sea twenty feet into the air, and fell with a tremendous concussion, directly upon the whale's back. It must have been several tons in weight, and the blow inflicted was crushing. For a moment the whale seemed paralysed by the shock, and its vast frame quivered with agony; but recovering quickly, it rushed with open jaws upon its strange assailant which immediately dived, and both vanished. Very soon, the whale came to the surface again; and now we became the witnesses of one of those singular and tremendous spectacles, of which the vast solitudes of the tropical seas are doubtless often the theatre, but which human eyes have rarely beheld. The cachelot seemed to be attacked by two powerful confederates, acting in concert. The one assailed it from below, and continually drove it to the surface, while the other--the dark bulky object--repeated its singular attacks in precisely the same manner as at first, whenever any part of the gigantic frame of the whale was exposed, never once missing its mark, and inflicting blows, which one would think, singly sufficient to destroy any living creature. At times the conflict was carried on so near us, as to endanger our safety; and we could see all of the combatants with the utmost distinctness, though not at the same time. The first glimpse which we caught of the second antagonist of the whale, as it rose through the water to the attack, enabled us at once to identify it as that most fierce and formidable creature--the Pacific Sword-fish.