But the fellow got tired out by and by. He had bled so much, that he
began to grow faint. At last he went so slow, that we rowed up to him,
and stabbed him with a long knife. He died pretty soon after that,
and we got more than two hundred barrels of oil out of him.

Catching whales seems a cruel business to you. It is a cruel business.
I never liked it. But somebody must do it. The butcher who kills
oxen, and sheep, and calves, has to be cruel. But we must have
butchers. We must have people to kill whales, though you never will
catch me chasing after a whale again, as long as my name is Jack
Mason.

Whales do not always run like the one I have told you about. Sometimes
they fight. After they are struck with the harpoon, they lift their
tail, or _fluke_, as they call it, and strike the boat so hard as to
dash it in pieces. Then the poor sailors have to swim to the ship if
they can. If they cannot, and if there is no other boat near them that
they can get into, they must drown.

I once saw a whale that had been struck with a harpoon come up close
to the ship, and give it such a blow with his fluke, that he tore the
copper off at a great rate, and broke a thick plank in half a dozen
pieces.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: The Indian, with his bow and arrows.]