A second and a third party of knights took the field; and although they had various success, yet, upon the whole, the advantage decidedly remained with the challengers, not one of whom lost his seat or swerved from his charge misfortunes which befell one or two of their antagonists in each
encounter. The spirits, therefore, of those opposed to them, seemed to be considerably damped by their continued success.
And it would have gone hard with him in the matter of food, had he not, on the second day,
encountered a lone small pig, evidently lost from its litter.
Then, when the storm broke, Wolf Larsen cruised back and forth over that portion of the ocean where we had
encountered it, and somewhat more to the westward, while the boats were being repaired and new sails made and bent.
I am ever willing to stand and fight when the odds are not too overwhelmingly against me, but in this instance I perceived neither glory nor profit in pitting my relatively puny strength against the iron muscles and brutal ferocity of this enraged denizen of an unknown world; in fact, the only outcome of such an
encounter, so far as I might be concerned, seemed sudden death.
Despite all Kutuzov's efforts to avoid that ruinous
encounter and to preserve his troops, the massacre of the broken mob of French soldiers by worn-out Russians continued at Krasnoe for three days.
A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever
encountered. So utterly lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil.
I was willing to
encounter some risks in order to accomplish my object, and counted much upon my ability to elude these prowling cannibals amongst the many coverts which the mountains afforded.
At last in the desperation of my position, my mind turned to the animal men I had
encountered. I tried to find some hope in what I remembered of them.
Already had he accounted for four of the seven lions and badly wounded the three remaining when in a momentary lull in the
encounter he sank limply to his knees and rolled over upon his side.
George but
encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle with the great monster of the deep.
Directly this extraor- dinary growth
encountered water it straightway became gigantic and of unparalleled fecundity.
The travellers hailed it with delight, as the first stream they had
encountered tending toward their point of destination.