As the cook sawed away, the captain ordered the first mate to take charge of the quarterdeck. He climbed down the narrow companionway to his cabin, tossed his weathered top hat onto his bunk, and sat down at his desk. He scanned his charts, but he had tried all the usual whaling grounds with nothing to show for his efforts. He sat back in his chair, closed his eyes, and let his chin drop to his chest. He had only dozed off for a few minutes before the wonderful words he hadn’t heard in months penetrated his veil of sleep.

“She blows!” a voice repeated. “Thar she blows.”

The captain’s eyes snapped wide open, and he came out of his chair like a catapulted projectile, grabbed his hat, and vaulted up the ladder to the deck. He squinted against the bright sunlight at the main masthead a hundred feet above the deck. Three mast-heads were manned in two-hour shifts, with the lookouts standing inside iron hoops on small platforms.

“Where away?” the captain shouted to the mainmast lookout.

“Starboard quarter, sir.” The lookout pointed off the bow. “There. She breaches.”

A huge hammer-shaped head rose from the sea a quarter of a mile away and splashed down in an explosion of spray. Sperm whale. Dobbs barked at the helmsman to steer for the breaching whale. Deckhands scrambled into the rigging with the agility of monkeys and unfurled every square inch of canvas.

As the ship came slowly around, a second lookout shouted down from his perch.

“Another, Captain!” The lookout’s voice was hoarse with excitement. “By God, another.”

Dobbs peered through his spyglass at a shiny gray back mounding from the sea. The spout was low and bushy, angled forward forty-five degrees. He moved the telescope to the right and then to the left. More spouts. A whole pod of whales. He let forth with a deep whooping laugh. He was looking at a potential fortune in oil.

The cook had stopped playing at the first sighting. He stood on the deck dumbfounded, his fiddle hanging limply at his side.

“You did it, cook!” the captain shouted. “You fiddled up enough spermaceti to fill our hold to the decks. Keep on playing, damnit.”

The cook gave the captain a gap-toothed grin and drew his bow across the violin strings, playing a jaunty sea chantey, as the helmsman brought the ship up into the wind. The sails were trimmed. The ship plowed to a stop.

“Clear away the larboard boats!” the captain roared with a gusto that had been pent up during the long whale drought. “Move smartly, men, if you like money.”

Dobbs ordered three boats launched. Each thirty-foot-long whaleboat was under the command of a mate who acted as boat officer and steersman. A skeleton crew stayed on board the Princess to sail the ship, if necessary. The captain held the fourth whaleboat in reserve.