I think none of us realized until then just what a narrow escape we had had. If the whale had struck squarely he would have torn such a hole in the steamer’s side that her sinking would have been a matter of seconds. The only thing that saved her was the quickness of the man at the wheel, who had thrown the vessel’s nose about, thus letting the blow glance from her side. It was a miracle that the propeller blades had not been broken or bent so badly as to disable us; why they were not even injured no one can tell—it was simply the luck that has always followed this vessel since Captain Andersen came aboard. [Illustration: “Then turning about with his entire head projecting from the water like the bow of a submarine, he swam parallel with the ship.” ] It should not be inferred that the whale deliberately attacked the ship with the intention of disabling her. There is little doubt in my mind but that the animal was blindly rushing forward in his death flurry, and the fact that he struck the vessel was pure accident. Nevertheless, the results would have been none the less serious if he had hit her squarely. [Illustration: “I was ... gazing down into the blue water and waiting to catch a glimpse of the body as it rose, when suddenly a dark shape glided swiftly under the ship’s bow.” ] After a hasty examination showed that the propeller was uninjured, the whale was hauled to the surface. I was standing on the gun platform gazing down into the blue water and waiting to catch a glimpse of the body as it rose, when suddenly a dark shape glided swiftly under the ship’s bow. At first I thought it was only imagination, an aftereffect of the excitement, but another followed, then another, and soon from every side specter-like forms were darting swiftly and silently here and there, sometimes showing a flash of white as one turned on its side. They were giant sharks drawn by the floating carcass as steel is drawn by a magnet. Like the vultures which wheel and circle in the western sky far beyond the reach of human sight, watching for the death of some poor, thirst-smitten, desert brute, so these vultures of the sea quickly gathered about the dead whale. I watched them silently fasten to the animal’s side, tearing away great cup-shaped chunks of blubber, and shivered as I thought of what would happen to a man if he fell overboard among these horrible, white-eyed sea-ghosts. Within three minutes of the time when the whale had been drawn to the surface over twenty sharks, each one accompanied by its little striped pilot fish swimming just behind its fins, were biting at the carcass. “_Dame, dame_, they’ll eat my whale up,” shouted Andersen in Japanese. “Bo’s’n, bring the small harpoon.” [Illustration: “Two boat hooks were jabbed into the shark’s gills and it was hauled along the ship’s side until it could be pulled on deck.” ]