If the two boys had been anxious to sight whales before, they were doubly eager now, and both spent as much time as they could in the rigging on the lookout. It was Joe who first of the two boys sighted a bowhead. The cry of “A-h-h blow!” had rung from the crow’s nest, and the Kanaka on the watch there reported a whale nearly dead ahead. All hands were on the lookout for the spout of this one, for the Kanakas in many cases have wonderful eyesight and can sight a whale much farther than the average white man, when, several points off the windward bow, Joe saw another blow and loudly proclaimed it from the mizzen rigging. A few moments afterward a third and a fourth were sighted, and the ship approached a school of black monsters numbering a dozen or so. Then she rounded to, a little to the windward, and the boats were hastily lowered. Harry found himself at the end of a sixteen-foot sweep that was very different from the oars he had been used to, but he soon accustomed himself to the stroke and swung along in good time with the others. He was conscious of a feeling of great elation, the thrill of ecstasy of the huntsman mingled with the dread of the unknown. They seemed such puny creatures to be attacking the greatest monster in the world. As they went on, both these feelings increased, till he shook with excitement and the man behind him noticed it. He was a brawny, grizzly old timer, bronzed by all the winds of the world, and hardened by many a hundred conflicts with the whales of all seas. “Don’t get gallied, younker,” he said kindly; “the bowhead ain’t no whale. He’s jest a hundred tons or so of blubber and bone. If we was goin’ up against a sperm now, or a fightin’ bull humpback, ye might feel skeery, but a bowhead ain’t nothin’. They kill as easy as a slaughter-house lamb.” Just then Harry fairly jumped from his seat, and lost his stroke for a moment. A shout had sounded, and glancing over his shoulder he saw that the first mate’s boat near by had already made fast, but had not as yet used the bomb gun. Instead, the whale seemed to have sounded too quickly, then changed his mind, and as Harry looked up over his shoulder he saw a great black mass rise fairly under the attacking boat, lifting it clear of the water, where it hung high for a moment, then, by some miracle still uncapsized, slid from the broad mass as if being launched. Even as the boat left the mountainous back, the mate leveled the bomb gun and discharged it full into the whale’s side. There was a shiver, the great flukes curled in one sweep that sent tons of spray into the air, which Mr. Jones with a skillful sweep of the steering oar narrowly avoided, and then the great black mass floated quivering on the surface.