The sturdy old captain watched their progress through his glass, every few minutes giving expression to his feelings in words of hope and encouragement.
"An old coaster, that whale is--thirty, yes, nearly forty barrels there.
Got pluck, too, that whale has.

Can always tell when a whale's got pluck.

Them old ones are ugly customers when they gets their pluck up," he would say, nodding his head decidedly and encouragingly.
The ship was now kept away a point or two, and proceeded under easy sail.

There was something thrilling in the scene, and every heart on board beat with excitement as the boats went swiftly on, one commanded by the first officer, the other by Tite.

Neither of these two young men had seen a whale killed; but there were in the boats old whalemen, who had successfully thrown both harpoon and lance.
The huge monster could now be seen clearly with the naked eye by those on the ship's deck, sporting lazily on the surface, his bright black sides now falling, now rising, like the hull of some water-logged ship, and throwing up thin white volumes of spray, over which the sun's rays reflected with singular brilliancy.