sacrifice on the whale, buried their friends on him, and sailed off rejoicing and apparently singing hymns of victory. So much for the events of the isle-fight.
From that time on, as I could no longer endure the life in the whale and was discontented with the loneliness, I sought a way of escape. First we determined to dig through the right side and make off, and we made a beginning and fell to cutting in. But when we had advanced some five furlongs without getting anywhere, we left off digging and decided to set the forest afire, thinking that in this way the whale could be killed, and in that case our escape would be easy. So we began at the tail end and set it afire. For seven days and seven nights he was unaffected by the burning, but on the eighth and ninth we gathered that he was in a bad way. For instance, he yawned less frequently, and whenever he did yawn he closed his mouth quickly. On the tenth and eleventh day mortification at last set in and he was noisome. On the twelfth we perceived just in time that if someone did not shore his jaws open when he yawned, so that he could not close them again, we stood a chance of being shut up in the dead whale and dying there ourselves. At the last moment, then, we propped the mouth open with great beams and made our boat ready, putting aboard
