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II . The Chase Captain Farragut was a good seaman , and he believed in the narwhal completely . He did not allow anybody on board to doubt it : either he would kill the animal , or it would kill him , and his officers and crew felt the same . Besides , the captain had promised two thousand dollars to the first man who saw the monster , and you can imagine how hard everybody watched the sea . The frigate carried every kind of weapon for catching whales , but her best weapon was a man . His name was Ned Land , and he was the king of harpooners . He was a Canadian from Quebec , about forty years old , more than six feet tall and very strong . He was a quiet , serious man who could become very angry if anyone argued with him . Because he spoke French , he soon became friendly with me , and I loved to hear his stories about hunting whales in the cold northern seas . There was only one strange thing about Ned : he did not believe in the narwhal at all . “ I have hunted many whales , sir , ” he told me one evening , “ and I have killed a good number of them . But no whale’s tail or tusk could ever make a hole in the iron plates of a steamer . ” I tried to change his mind by explaining that an animal which lived miles below the surface must be enormously strong to bear the weight of all that water . It would have a body like an armoured ship . “ If such animals live at the bottom of the sea , ” said Ned at last , “ then they must be as strong as you say . That is all I will admit . ” At the end of June we met an American whaler , the Monroe , and her captain asked for Ned’s help with a whale . Captain Farragut let him go . Ned harpooned not one whale but two , and after that nobody doubted his skill . If the monster ever met Ned Land’s harpoon , I would not bet on the monster . We went round Cape Horn and entered the Pacific . For three long months the Abraham Lincoln searched the northern part of that ocean , from Japan to the coast of America . Every time a whale showed its black back , the whole crew rushed on deck , and every time they were disappointed . Slowly the excitement turned into anger , and the sailors said that the hunt was a waste of time and that they wanted to go home . At last , on the second of November , Captain Farragut asked for three more days . If the monster did not appear in three days , he promised to turn back towards Europe .
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