Everyone holds his breath.
"Lie on your oars, men! Still and quiet!"
The boat drifts a little way further, but the gun is trained.
Bang!
The echoes reverberate from every berg, or far or near. The line all neatly coiled in the bows is whirling out, till the gunwale begins to fire. But it as speedily stops.
Grand shot! The monster is struck, and for a few seconds seems stunned, and lies still on the top of the water.
The school has dived and disappeared, to come up somewhere again miles and miles away.
And now the wounded whale recovers from the shot, and headlong dives, the line rushing out once again as before. Under way once again is the boat, but the leviathan now reappears as suddenly as he had sunk. Some instinct--whether of scent or hearing I cannot tell--causes him to take the same course as his fellows.
Mercy on us, how he rips and tears through the black-green water! But ever and anon he dives, and it is evident his exertions weary him a little.
And now the line is all run out, and the boat is taken in charge. The gunwale is cooled with hastily-drawn buckets of water, and forward she dashes, so quickly too that a wall of water stands up on each side of the bows.