“But what is it?” asked Bob.
Jerry ran below and brought up a lantern which had on a powerful reflector. It was a light set on the wall in the cabin and designed to throw the rays in one spot. It was a sort of oil-power searchlight.
Holding this, Jerry advanced to the rail and directed the rays of light over the side and down to the water. What he saw caused him to utter a cry of surprise and fear, in which the others joined.
[“Whales!” shouted Jerry. “We’re in the midst of a school of whales!”]
“You’re right!” agreed the sailor. “We’ve run right into them, or they’ve surrounded us, and it’s the bumping of their big heads against the sides that made the sounds.”
“Is there any danger?” asked Bob.
“There may be, if they take a notion to ram us all at once,” the sailor said. “Of course there isn’t the same danger to a ship like this that there would be to a small boat. But if they start to ram, and loosen some of the side plates below the water line so that we begin to leak—well, there’s no way of pumping the sea out.”
“Whales?” exclaimed Professor Snodgrass. “How interesting! I wish Dr. Hallet were here now!”
He did not specify whether it was so that the doctor might view the natural phenomenon or so that the professor’s rival might be annoyed and distressed by the visit of the sea monsters.
“What had we better do?” asked Bob.