“And by this and by that!” he exclaimed, “there is a Naiad on it now! or it’s Ino herself, by all that’s amusing!”
“Away, second whaler!”—this from McBain. “Get your rifle, boy Rory, and jump on board and fetch that seal!”
Down rattled the boat from the davits, Rory in the bows; the next moment she was off, and tearing through the glazed water as fast as sturdy arms could row. The seal took one look up to see what was coming. Rory’s rifle rang out sharp and clear in the frosty air, and the poor seal never lifted head again.
The ship was by this time a goodly mile ahead, but there she stopped; then she went ahead again, rounded, and came back full speed to meet the boat, for they on board could see a danger that Rory couldn’t—couldn’t, did I say? Ah! but he soon did, and, with the roar of a maelstrom, down they came upon him—an enormous school of whales!
The men lay on their oars thunderstruck. The sea around them seemed alive with the mighty monsters. How they plunged and ploughed and snorted and blew! The sea became roughened, as if a fierce wind was blowing over it; pieces of ice as large as boats were caught on the backs or tails of these brutes and pitched aside as one might a football.
It occurred to Rory to fire at some of them.
“Stay, stay!” roared the coxswain; “if you love your life, sir, and care for ours, fire not. You may never have seen a whale angry—I have. Fire not, I beseech you!”
It was a strange danger to have encountered, and Rory and his boat-mates were not sorry when it passed, and they once more stood in safety on the deck of the Arrandoon.
But Rory soon regained his equanimity.