Nay, more; he churned the water with his mighty tail and moved forward to meet his enemy, with ready jaw to grind them to bits.

The captain at the boat-oar, or steering-oar, made a mighty effort and escaped the rush; then sent an explosive bomb into the whale's vitals as he surged past.

Struck unto death, the great bull went into his flurry; but in dying he rolled over the captain's boat like an avalanche, destroying it as completely as he had the three others.

So man won the battle, but at a heavy cost.

The whaleman who chronicled this fight says significantly: "The captain proceeded to Buenos Ayres, as much to allow his men, who were mostly green, to run away, as for the purpose of refitting, as he knew they would be useless thereafter." It was well recognized in the whaling service that men once thoroughly "gallied," or frightened, were seldom useful again; and, indeed, most of the participants in this battle did, as the captain anticipated, desert at the first port.
Curiously enough, there did not begin to be a literature of whaling until the industry went into its decadence.