Noll looked again, and Brander leveled his glass once more. The _Sally_
was making that way, now; the speck was almost dead ahead of them, far
on the sea. Tiny bits of white were stirring over the black thing, like
bits of paper in the wind.... Noll asked at last: "What do you make of
it, Mr. Brander? A boat.... Or a derelict...."
"I make it a dead whale," said Brander.
"No whale," Noll argued. "Rides too high."
"It will be rotten," Brander insisted. "Swollen.... Full of putrid gas."
They watched a while longer, neither speaking. The light wind that urged
them on was failing; the _Sally_ slackened her pace, bit by bit; but her
own momentum and some casual drift of the surface water still sent her
toward the floating speck. It bulked larger in their glasses.
They were within a mile of it before Noll Wing shut his glass. "Aye,
dead whale," he said disgustedly, and began to descend from the rigging.
Brander dropped lightly after him. Noll stumped past the men at their
stations by the boats till he came to Dan'l Tobey. "Dead whale," he told
Dan'l. "Let it be."