for fishing, and the implements of whaling were not on board.
One day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, I had gone forward to watch the gambols of a "school" of the huge sea mammals. Hearne was pointing them out to his companions, and muttering in disjointed phrases,—
"There, look there! That's a fin-back! There's another, and another; three of them with their dorsal fins five or six feet high. Just see them swimming between two waves, quietly, making no jumps. Ah! if I had a harpoon, I bet my head that I could send it into one of the four yellow spots they have on their bodies. But there's nothing to be done in this traffic-box; one cannot stretch one's arms. Devil take it! In these seas it is fishing we ought to be at, not—"
Then, stopping short, he swore a few oaths, and cried out, "And that other whale!"
"The one with a hump like a dromedary?" asked a sailor.
"Yes. It is a humpback," replied Hearne. "Do you make out its wrinkled belly, and also its long dorsal fin? They're not easy to take, those humpbacks, for they go down into great depths and devour long reaches of your lines. Truly, we deserve that he should give us a switch of his tail on our side, since we don't send a harpoon into his."
"Look out! Look out!" shouted the boatswain. This was not to warn us that we were in danger of receiving the formidable stroke of the humpback's tail which the sealing-master had wished us. No, an enormous blower had come alongside the schooner, and almost on the instant a spout of ill-smelling water was ejected from its
