TWO:Then came the lunch, in the town-hall near by, at which the bishop did his duty, and the guests theirs. There was a table and a raised dais for the principal of those, and on the floor of the hall a dozen others for the less distinguished. Close by against the wall were sitting those of Keelings staff who had been bidden to the ceremony, and he had already satisfied himself that Norah was there. Then at the close of lunch came Lord Inverbrooms speech, and at the close of that the sentence for which Mrs Keeling had been waiting."Captain Hunting, of New Bedford, had the worst fight that I know of, while he was on a cruise in the South Atlantic. When he struck the fellowit was a tough old bull that had been through fights before, I reckonthe whale didn't try to escape, but turned on the boat, bit her in two, and kept on thrashing the wreck till he broke it up completely. Another boat picked up the men and took them to the ship, and then two other boats went in on him. Each of them got in two irons, and that made him mad; he turned around and chewed those boats, and he stuck closely to business until there wasn't a mouthful left. The twelve swimmers[Pg 67] were picked up by the boat which had taken the first lot to the ship; two of the men had climbed on his back, and he didn't seem to mind them. He kept on chewing away at the oars, sails, masts, planks, and other fragments of the boats; and whenever anything touched his body, he turned and munched away at it. There he was with six harpoons in him, and each harpoon had three hundred fathoms of line attached to it. Captain Hunting got out two spare boats, and started with them and the saved boat to renew the fight. He got alongside and sent a bomb-lance charged with six inches of powder right into the whale's vitals, just back of his fin. When the lance was fired, he turned and tore through the boat like a hurricane, scattering everything. The sun was setting, four boats were gone with all their gear and twelve hundred fathoms of line, the spare boats were poorly provided, the men were wearied and discouraged, and Captain Hunting hauled off and admitted himself beaten by a whale."
THREE:While the Doctor and his companions were at table in the restaurant at Uyeno, they were surprised by the presence of an old acquaintance. Mr. A., or "The Mystery," who had been their fellow-passenger from San Francisco, suddenly entered the room, accompanied by two Japanese officials, with whom he was evidently on very friendly terms. They were talking in English, and the two natives seemed to be quite fluent in it, but they evidently preferred to say little in the presence of the strangers. Mr. A. was equally disinclined to talk, or even to make himself known, as he simply nodded to Doctor Bronson and the boys, and then sat down in a distant corner. When the waiter came, he said something to him in a low tone, and in a few minutes the proprietor appeared, and led the way to a private room, where the American and his Japanese friends would be entirely by themselves.
TWO:
