The
vessel rested, like a bird on her nest, in a deep, still tarn,
shut in, to all appearance, on every side by huge rock barriers.
Of the furious storm but a moment before howling and raging all
around them, nothing remained but an all-pervading, thunderous
hum, causing the deck to vibrate beneath them, and high overhead
the jagged, leaden remnants of twisted, tortured cloud whirling
past their tiny oblong of sky. Just a minute's suspension of all
faculties but wonder, then, in one spontaneous, heartfelt note of
genuine admiration, all hands burst into a cheer that even
overtopped the mighty rumble of the baffled sea.
Here they lay, perfectly secure, and cut in their whale as if in
dock; then at the first opportunity they ran out, with fearful
difficulty, a kedge with a whale-line attached, by which means
they warped the vessel out of her hiding-place--a far more
arduous operation than getting in had been. But even this did
not exhaust the wonders of that occasion. They had hardly got
way upon her, beginning to draw out from the land, when the
eagle-eye of one of the Maories detected the carcass of a whale
rolling among the breakers about half a mile to the westward.
Immediately a boat was lowered, a double allowance of line put
into her, and off they went to the valuable flotsam.
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