Elated at their success in sighting the white whales, the two boys ran up the rigging to their places on the crosstrees. Scarcely had Tom glanced about when his shout of, “She blows!” rang out. Barely a mile ahead a sparkling jet of vapor had risen above the sea, and an instant later a stupendous body had broken the surface, gleaming like polished metal in the sun. Cataracts of water poured from it. Tom fairly gasped at the size of the creature, and his voice was shaking with excitement as he yelled back, “a point off the port bow, about a mile away,” in response to the Captain’s call of, “Where away?”
“It’s the biggest whale ever!” he cried excitedly to the officers as he reached the deck. “Say, we will have a fight with him!”
Captain Edwards chuckled. “I’ll bet we would—if we gave him a chance,” he replied. “But we ain’t a-goin’ to meddle with that critter.”
“You mean you’re not going after him?” cried Tom in wondering tones. “Why, why, he’d give over a hundred barrels!”
“Don’t doubt it,” smiled the skipper, “but he can keep it under his blamed old hide for all of us.”
“Do you mean you’re afraid to tackle him?” demanded the puzzled boy.
Mr. Kemp and Cap’n Pem burst into a roar of laughter. “Yes and no,” declared the second officer, “that’s a finback.”
“Finback!” exclaimed Jim. “What’s that?”
“Consarndest critters there be,” declared Cap’n Pem. “Ef ye wanter git stove or kilt or towed ter kingdom come, jes go in on a finback. ’Course I ain’t skeered o’ doin’ of it—never seed a whale yit thet skeered me, but shucks, what’s the use? Derned critters’ll tow ye nigh fifty mile ’fore ye kin lance ’em an’ fight like Sam Hill. An’ arter ye’ve druv home the lance, ef yer boat ain’t smashed ter kindlin’ wood, an’ ye ain’t kilt, the consarned critter’s jes mean an onderhanded enough fer to sink.”
“Then you don’t touch them!” exclaimed Tom. “Gosh, it seems a shame to let such big fellows go. Aren’t they ever killed?”