"Look out there! The very thing we are looking for--
on our weather beam!"



CHAPTER VI

AT FULL STEAM

At this cry the whole ship's crew hurried towards the harpooner--
commander, officers, masters, sailors, cabin boys; even the engineers
left their engines, and the stokers their furnaces.

The order to stop her had been given, and the frigate now simply went
on by her own momentum. The darkness was then profound, and, however good
the Canadian's eyes were, I asked myself how he had managed to see,
and what he had been able to see. My heart beat as if it would break.
But Ned Land was not mistaken, and we all perceived the object
he pointed to. At two cables' length from the Abraham Lincoln,
on the starboard quarter, the sea seemed to be illuminated all over.
It was not a mere phosphoric phenomenon. The monster emerged some fathoms
from the water, and then threw out that very intense but mysterious
light mentioned in the report of several captains. This magnificent
irradiation must have been produced by an agent of great SHINING power.
The luminous part traced on the sea an immense oval, much elongated,
the centre of which condensed a burning heat, whose overpowering brilliancy
died out by successive gradations.

"It is only a massing of phosphoric particles," cried one of the officers.