But it was not charging.

Instead, it circled slowly about the schooner as if examining its antagonist.
"I'll bet it's head's sore from all that banging, an' it's beginnin' to feel it," Daughtry grinned, chiefly for the purpose of keeping his comrades unafraid.
Barely had they rowed a dozen strokes, when an exclamation from Big John led them to follow his gaze to the schooners forecastle-head, where the forecastle cat flashed across in pursuit of a big rat.

Other rats they saw, evidently driven out of their lairs by the rising water.
"We just can't leave that cat behind," Daughtry soliloquized in suggestive tones.
"Certainly not," the Ancient Mariner responded swinging his weight on the steering-sweep and heading the boat back.
Twice the whale gently rolled them in the course of its leisurely circling, ere they bent to their oars again and pulled away.

Of them the whale seemed to take no notice.

It was from the huge thing, the schooner, that death had been wreaked upon her calf; and it was upon the schooner that she vented the wrath of her grief.
Even as they pulled away, the whale turned and headed across the ocean.
At a half-mile distance she curved about and charged back.
"With all that water in her, the schooner'll have a real kick-back in her when she's hit," Daughtry said.