"No!" yelled Hank. "Stand by, all!"
Then suddenly:
"Back oars! Back, you lubbers! Hard as you know how!"
The oars bent like yew-staves.
"Back starboard! Hard!"
With the blood rushing to his brain, Colin, who was on the starboard side of the boat, threw his whole energy into the back stroke, and the boat spun round like a top into what seemed to be the seething center of a submarine volcano, for, with a roar that made the timbers of the boat vibrate, the gray whale spouted not six feet from where the boy was sitting. Dimly he saw the harpoon hurtle through the spray and the sharp crack of the explosion sounded in his ear.
Catching his breath chokingly, Colin was only conscious of the fact that he was expected to pull and he leapt into the stroke as the six oars shot the boat ahead.
Not soon enough, though! For, as the boat plunged from the crest of a wave the whale swirled, making a suction like a whirlpool into which the craft lurched drunkenly. Then the great creature, turning with a speed that seemed incredible, brought down the flukes of his tail in the direction of the boat, snapping off the stroke oar like a pipe-stem. Avidsen, the oarsman, a
burly Norwegian, though his wrist was sharply and painfully wrenched by the blow, made no complaint, but reached out for one of the spare oars the boat always carried.