fairly good quality, if the price was high, and exactly suited to
our requirements. Soap, matches, and tobacco were likewise
supplied on the same terms, but at higher prices than I had ever
heard of before for these necessaries. After much careful inquiry
I ascertained what, in the event of a successful voyage, we were
likely to earn. Each of us were on the two hundredth "lay" or
share at $200 per tun, which meant that for every two hundred
barrels of oil taken on board, we were entitled to one, which we
must sell to the ship at the rate of L40 per tun or L4 per
barrel. Truly a magnificent outlook for young men bound to such
a business for three or four years.


*


CHAPTER V

ACTUAL WARFARE. OUR FIRST WHALE

Simultaneous ideas occurring to several people, or thought
transference, whatever one likes to call the phenomenon is too
frequent an occurrence in most of our experience to occasion much
surprise. Yet on the occasion to which I am about to refer, the
matter was so very marked that few of us who took part in the
day's proceedings are ever likely to forget it.

We were all gathered about the fo'lk'sle scuttle one evening, a
few days after the gale referred to in the previous chapter, and
the question of whale-fishing came up for discussion. Until that