"There won't be much of a flurry, Hank," he said; "you got the lungs with the lance both times."
The old whaler looked at Colin, who was a little white about the lips.
"Scared you, I reckon?" he said. "You don't need to feel bad over that. Any one's got a right to be scared when a whale's chargin' the boat. I've been whalin' for nigh on forty-five years an' that's only the second devil-whale I've ever killed with a hand-lance. He pretty near caught us with his flukes that first time, too!"
"Guess that's the end of him," said Scotty, as the big animal beat the air with his tail, the slap of the huge flukes throwing up a fountain of spray.
"That's the end," agreed Hank.
Almost with the word the great gray whale turned, one fin looming above the water as he did so, and sank heavily to the bottom, the buoy which had been attached to the harpoon-line by Scotty showing where he sank, so that the ship could pick up the carcass later.
"How big do you suppose that whale was?" queried the boy as they started to pull back to the ship.
"'Bout forty-five foot, I reckon," was the reply, "an' we ought to get about twenty barrels of oil out of him."