“Did ye see yon?” said Saunders to Mivins in an agitated whisper, laying his huge hand on the shoulder of that worthy.  “Down your helm” (to the steersman).

“Ay, ay, sir!”

“Stiddy!”

“Steady it is, sir.”

Mivins’s face, which for some hours had worn an expression of deep anxiety, relaxed into a bland smile, and he smote his thigh powerfully, as he exclaimed, “That’s them, sir, and no mistake!  What’s your opinion, Mr. Saunders?”

The second mate peered earnestly in the direction in which the light had been seen; and Mivins, turning in the same direction, screwed up his visage into a knot of earnest attention so complicated and intense, that it seemed as if no human power could evermore unravel it.

“There it goes again!” cried Saunders, as the light flashed distinctly over the sea.

“Down helm; back fore-top-sails!” he shouted, springing forward; “lower away the boat there!”

In a few seconds the ship was hove to, and a boat, with a lantern fixed to an oar, was plunging over the swell in the direction of the light.  Sooner than was expected they came up with it, and a hurrah in the distance told that all was right.

“Here we are, thank God,” cried Captain Guy, “safe and sound.  We don’t require assistance, Mr. Saunders; pull for the ship.”

A short pull sufficed to bring the three boats alongside, and in a few seconds more the crew were congratulating their comrades with that mingled feeling of deep heartiness and a disposition to jest which is characteristic of men who are used to danger, and think lightly of it after it is over.

“We’ve lost our fish, however,” remarked Captain Guy, as he passed the crew on his way to the cabin; “but we must hope for better luck next time.”

“Well, well,” said one of the men, wringing the water out of his wet clothes as he walked forward, “we got a good laugh at Peter Grim, if we got nothin’ else by our trip.”

“How was that, Jack?”

“Why, ye see, jist before the whale gave in, it sent up a spout o’ blood and oil as thick as the main-mast, and, as luck would have it, down it came slap on the head of Grim, drenchin’ him from head to foot, and makin’ him as red as a lobster.”

“’Ow did you lose the fish, sir?” inquired Mivins, as our hero sprang up the side, followed by Singleton.

“Lost him as men lose money in railway speculations now-a-days.  We sank him, and that was the last of it.  After he had towed us I don’t know how far—­out of sight of the ship at any rate—­he suddenly stopped, and we pulled up and gave him some tremendous digs with the lances, until he spouted jets of blood, and we made sure of him, when all at once down he went head-foremost like a cannon ball, and took all the line out of both boats, so we had to cut, and he never came up again.  At least, if he did it became so dark that we never saw him.  Then we pulled to where we thought the ship was, and, after rowing nearly all night, caught sight of your lights; and here we are, dead tired, wet to the skin, and minus about two miles of whale-line and three harpoons.”