tried to put about; it was impossible.

The sailors knew that they were lost. All rose, giving a terrible cry,
which was perhaps heard on the "Pilgrim."

A terrible blow from the monster's tail had just struck the whale-boat
underneath. The boat, thrown into the air with irresistible violence,
fell back, broken in three pieces, in the midst of waves furiously
lashed by the whale's bounds.

The unfortunate sailors, although grievously wounded, would have had,
perhaps, the strength to keep up still, either by swimming or by
hanging on to some of the floating wreck. That is what Captain Hull
did, for he was seen for a moment hoisting the boatswain on a wreck.

But the jubarte, in the last degree of fury, turned round, sprang up,
perhaps in the last pangs of a terrible agony, and with her tail she
beat the troubled waters frightfully, where the unfortunate sailors
were still swimming.

For some minutes one saw nothing but a liquid water-spout scattering
itself in sheafs on all sides.

A quarter of an hour after, when Dick Sand, who, followed by the
blacks, had rushed into the boat, had reached the scene of the
catastrophe, every living creature had disappeared. There was nothing
left but some pieces of the whale-boat on the surface of the waters,
red with blood.

* * * * *