The unhappy parent,
with an instinct always more powerful than reason, never quitted the
body.
We hauled in upon the line, and came close up to our quarry just
as another boat had fixed a harpoon in the mother. The tail of the
furious animal descended with irresistible force upon the very centre
of our boat, cutting it in two, and killing two of the men; the
survivors took to swimming for their lives in all directions. The
whale went in pursuit of the third boat, but was checked by the line
from the one that had struck her: she towed them at the rate of ten or
eleven miles an hour: and had she had deep water, would have taken the
boat down, or obliged them to cut away from her.
The two boats were so much employed that they could not come to our
assistance for some time, and we were left to our own resources much
longer than I thought agreeable. I was going to swim to the calf
whale; but one of the men advised me not to do so, saying that the
sharks would be as thick about him as the lawyers round Westminster
Hall; and that I should certainly be snapped up if I went near: for
my comfort he added, "These devils seldom touch a man if they can get
anything else." This might be very true; but I must confess I was very
glad to see one of the boats come to our assistance, while the mother
whale, encumbered with the heavy harpoon and line, and exhausted with
the fountain of black blood which she threw up, drew near to her calf,
and died by its side; evidently, in her last moments, more occupied
with the preservation of her young than of herself.
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