Count been a prudent
or less ambitious man, our task would doubtless have been an easy
one, or comparatively so; but, being a little over-grasping, he
got us all into serious trouble. We were hauling up to our whale
in order to lance it, and the mate was standing, lance in hand,
only waiting to get near enough, when up comes a large whale
right alongside of our boat, so close, indeed, that I might have
poked my finger in his little eye, if I had chosen. The sight of
that whale at liberty, and calmly taking stock of us like that,
was too much for the mate. He lifted his lance and hurled it at
the visitor, in whose broad flank it sank, like a knife into
butter, right up to the pole-hitches. The recipient disappeared
like a flash, but before one had time to think, there was an
awful crash beneath us, and the mate shot up into the air like a
bomb from a mortar. He came down in a sitting posture on the
mast-thwart; but as he fell, the whole framework of the boat
collapsed like a derelict umbrella. Louis quietly chopped the
line and severed our connection with the other whale, while in
accordance with our instructions we drew each man his oar across
the boat and lashed it firmly down with a piece of line spliced
to each thwart for the purpose.
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