Abruptly, Mr. Ham, bending above the water, thought he saw a black bulk far down and down.... A bulk that seemed to rise.... He watched.... It was ahead of the boat; it became more plainly visible.... He waved his hand, pointing: "There ..." he said. "There...." Deep in the water, that black bulk swiftly moved; it darted to one side, circling, rising.... Mr. Ham saw a flash of white, a huge black head, a sword-like, saw-toothed jaw.... The big man towered; he flung his left hand up and back in a tremendous gesture. "Starn.... Oh, starn all!" he cried. The oars bent like bows under the fierce thrust of the men as they backed water.... The boat slid back.... But not in time.... Willis Cox, and the men in his boat, saw the long, narrow under jaw of the cachalot--a dozen feet long, with the curving teeth of a tiger set along it--slide up from the water, above the bow of the boat. The bow lifted as the whale's upper jaw, toothless, rose under it.... The creature was on its back, biting.... The boat rolled sidewise, the men were tumbling out.... But that narrow jaw sheared down resistlessly. Through the stout sides of the boat, crumpling and splintering ribs and planking.... Through the boat.... And clamped shut as the jaws closed across the thick body of the mate.... They saw the mate's body swell as a toy balloon swells under a child's foot.... Then horribly it relaxed and fell away and was lost in a smother of bloody foam.... * * * * * Loum, Willis's boat-steerer, swung them alongside the rolling whale. It was Brander who caught a loop of the loose line; and while the creature lay quietly, apparently content with what it had done, they hauled close, and Willis--the boy's face was white, but his hand was steady--drove home his lance, and drew it forth, and plunged it in, again and yet again.... The whale seemed to have exhausted its strength. Having killed, it died easily enough. Spout crimsoned, flukes beat in a last flurry, then the great black bulk was still.... They picked up the men who had been spilled from the mate's boat. Not a man hurt, of them all, save only Mr. Ham. Him they never found; no part of him. The sea took him. No doubt, Faith thought that night, he would have wished his rough life thus to end. XII