He comes just so near the vessel, and then he stops and blows.

Then he suns his back for a while, and then he throws up his flukes and sounds.

He does that as regular as if he was a polar clock.

I know the very shape of his flukes; and two or three days ago, as he was soundin', I thought that the tip of the upper one looked as if it had been damaged--as if he had broken it floppin' about in some tight place; and ever since, when I have seen a whale, I have looked for the tip of that upper fluke, and there's that same old break.

Every time I have looked I have found it.
It can't be that there are a lot o' whales in here and each one of 'em with a battered fluke." "That does look sort o' queer," said Sammy, reflectively.
"Sammy Block," said Captain Jim, impressively, "it's my opinion that there's only one whale in this here polar sea; an', more than that, it's my opinion that there's only one whale in this world, an' that that feller we've seen is the one! Samuel Block, he's the last whale in the whole world! Now you know that I wanted to go a-whalin'-- that's natural enough--but since Mr.Gibbs has got through, and has said that I could take this vessel an' go a-whalin' if I wanted to--which would be easy enough, for we have got guns aboard which would kill any right-whale--I don't want to go.