Oh where was her true love--and why, why did he not come and save her?
At that moment he was lifting his harpoon to strike a whale in Behring's Strait, five thousand miles away, by the way of the Arctic Ocean, or twenty thousand by the way of the Horn--that was the reason.

He struck, but not with perfect aim--his foot slipped and he fell in the whale's mouth and went down his throat.

He was insensible five days.

Then he came to himself and heard voices; daylight was streaming through a hole cut in the whale's roof.

He climbed out and astonished the sailors who were hoisting blubber up a ship's side.