The Whale's Spout

The whale seemed to have treble banked his every fin, swimming with a velocity which plainly showed that if now, under these circumstances, pushed on, the chase would prove an indefinitely prolonged, if not a hopeless one. The ship itself, then, as it sometimes happens, offered the most promising, intermediate means of overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her, and were soon swayed up to their cranes - hoisting everything to her side and stacking her canvas high up and sideways outstretching it with stun sails like the double jointed wings of an albatross.