5. "None of your venturesome pranks, Thomas; if you get alongside a whale," said the skipper to his son, a lad of fifteen, who belonged in the first mate's boat, "you'll have need of all your dexterity.".

Thomas, the ship's favorite, smiled, and shook his curly head. At the same moment, the water broke into a whirlpool a few fathoms astern. There was a hurried whispering; then the boats were forced round, as a very small whale a calf- rose to the surface.

6. We perceived at once that the creature had been struck by some other crew; for the shank of an iron protruded from its body. It seemed very weak, and in much pain, moving slowly, and now and then reeling sideways with a sudden plunge. It swam in a circle, as if bewildered; and the noise of its spouting somehow reminded me of the wailing of a child.

"Paddle ahead!" was the order; for every man believed that the mother of the calf, the cow-whale, was not far off.

The first mate was soon within darting distance.

“Give it to him!" he shrieked, and whiz! went the harpooner's iron into the animal's body.

7. For a few moments the little whale, as if half stupefied, remained nearly motionless; then it came down, writhing and whirling its flukes in great agony; after which it sounded. It was too weak to drag the boat very fast or very far; and it soon rose about fifty yards ahead. "Haul line!" ordered the mate, now in the boat's bow, with lance in hand.

As he spoke, the water on one side of the calf suddenly parted with a roar like a cataract, and an enormous leviathan, the cow-whale, boomed up from the surface, beating the sea with her flukes, and spouting furiously.

8. Round and round her offspring she swam; but soon paused, as if half paralyzed with astonishment and grief at the situation of the sufferer. A moment she remained thus, then moved ahead slowly and gently, occasionally turning, as if to entice the little creature to follow. In fact the calf endeavored to do so, but was too badly crippled to swim; it made a few feeble plunges toward its parent, and then began to writhe and wheel in great agony. Perceiving that it was now in its flurry, the mate stopped hauling line, and remained watching the animal until its blood-red spoutings no longer rose, and it rolled over quite dead.

9. The conduct of its mother was pitiful to witness. She seemed unwilling to believe that her young was really dead. Round it she slowly swam, spouting with a noise something between a shriek and a gasp. Then she moved ahead as before, and, like one half crazed, seemed not yet to have abandoned the hope of being followed by her offspring. Meanwhile her enemies were rapidly but stealthily advancing. Soon the captain, who was foremost, was near enough to dart.

"Let her have!" he exclaimed. Zadik raised his harpoon; at the same moment the cow gently rubbed her great head against the little whale, as if to ascertain the reason why it would not follow her.

10. Zadik lowered the point of his weapon; his wild eyes softened.

"That whale is just like a human mother, captain,” said he," and I haven't the heart to strike it!"

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Why, Zadik, what ails ye? Dart! dart! I tell ye!” As he spoke, a sudden change came over the whale, which now, half turning, saw the boat. Wrathful and wild for revenge, she threw the whole length of her enor

mous body out of water; then, falling back with the din of a cataract, she made straight for the boat, her bristling jaws wide open, and her broad flukes beating the sea!

11. "Stern! stern!" shouted old Boom; and every man of his crew, except Zadik, turned pale.

The harpooner had changed with the leviathan. The flush of fight was now on his cheek, and there was fire in his eye. His dark brow was wrinkled; the ends of his straight, black hair bristled like spear-points. He motioned to the captain to keep off a little, and, being obeyed, sent both irons whizzing into the side of the monster !

12. Maddened with pain, fiercer than ever, the whale made a swift dash toward the boat, which she must have grappled, had not the captain, by a dexterous movement, whirled the light vessel to one side. Thus baffled, the monster descended, shaking a savage warning with her flukes as she disappeared. Away went the boat swift as a whirlwind, the line humming around the loggerhead," and the crew cheering lustily in answer to the cheers of those who were pulling after them.

13. Zadik and the captain changed places, and the “old lion," as we called Boom, soon had his lance ready. The whale came up a quarter of an hour later, and "Haul line!" was the order. When within darting distance, the skipper sent his long weapon into the monster's body. Enraged beyond all bounds, she came dashing toward us in a cloud of whirling spray tossed by her enormous flukes.

14. "Stern! stern!" ordered the captain.

Thicker and faster flew the spray, almost hiding the animal from us, until suddenly we saw its great head, with the bristling jaws, bursting from the white foam-cloud, within six inches of the skipper! Had the nerves of

Zadik failed him, the old man must have perished the next minute. But the voice of the Kanacka rang like the clang of a hammer, as with ready steering-oar he whirled the boat's broadside toward the monster, and then gave the order to "Stern!"

15. Snap went the monster's closing jaws, just missing the boat's bow! and whiz-z-z went the old captain's lance again into her body!

As she dashed furiously toward us, our shipmates arrived to take part in the combat. The first mate, who had left the calf to be towed by an extra boat's crew from the ship, attacked the monster on one flank, while the captain and his second and third mates battled desperately upon the other. The cheers of the men, the crashing of the whale's flukes, mingling with wild cries, were heard on all sides; while so thick was the spray that no man could see his neighbor distinctly.

16. Vigorously pressed, with lance after lance piercing her body, the whale soon acknowledged the power of her assailants by sending up into the spray-cloud a light-red fountain of blood! With exultant screams, the lancers, still attacking, buried their weapons in her writhing body, from which the spout rose darker and lower every mo

ment.

Suddenly, with one tremendous whirl of her flukes, she struck the first mate's boat, shivering it to atoms! Then slowly round and round she swam, the dark blood-spout now ascending scarcely six inches. Finally, half lifting her flukes and head in one last spasm of agony, she expired!

17. The first mate's crew, being good swimmers, had not yet been picked up: for the captain had been too busy to notice which vessel was wrecked. As the poor fellows were helped into his boat, he looked in vain for his son.

The sad story was soon told. (pl.) Poor little Thomas was far down under the sea, whither his frame, crushed by the whale's flukes,. had been dragged by sharks.

18. The captain groaned, and bowed his head. He did not lift it until we were alongside the ship. While we were cutting up the whale, we looked in vain for him.

"He is down in the cabin," said the mate, "weeping and sobbing like a child. He will never be a happy man again!"

“Ay, ay," said Zadik gloomily. "I felt as if no good would come of our striking that whale! We killed her offspring, and she killed the captain's son!"

LESSON XLI.

1LE VIA THAN here means the great whale.

2 MAD ́RE PÕRE, species of coral which usually branch like trees and shrubs, and have the surface covered with small prominences, each containing a cell.

3 PHOS PHOR ES' CENCE, a shining with a faint light; state of being luminous without sensible heat.

* CACH' A LOT, (cash' a lot,) the sperm-whale. It has in its head a large cavity, in which is collected an oily fluid, which, after death, concretes into a granulated, yellowish substance, called spermaceti.

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BASQUES, (Basks,) an ancient and peculiar people, living on the slopes of the Pyrences Mountains.

TUN' NY, a large fish of the mackerel species. Its flesh is considered excellent food. Tunnies weighing over a thousand pounds are quite common in the Mediterranean.

LEVIATHAN, OR THE GREAT WHALE.

FROM THE FRENCH OF MICHELET.

HE fisherman belated at night in the North Sea,"

"THE

says Milton, "saw an isle, which, like the back of

a mountain, lay upon the water; and in that isle he fast