I looked, naturally, in the same direction myself, and never to my dying day shall I forget the frightful, appalling object which met my gaze.
At a distance of not more than three cables’ lengths from us, rushing through the water at a speed equal to that of a railway train, and lashing the water into foam with the rapid movement of his huge convolutions, a monstrous serpent appeared, darting towards the wretched persecuted whale.
His vast head and fully twenty feet of his body towered nearly erect above the water, and I believe I am not exaggerating, nay, that I am within the mark, when I say that the remaining portion of his body, to the tail, was at least six times that length.
His head was shaped much like that of a python, and his enormous jaws, which he frequently opened, disclosed a formidable array of strong sharp fangs. His body was of a deep dead brown, broadly marked with irregular stripes and rings of pale stone-colour; and he emitted a strong musky odour, which, even at our distance from him, was almost overpowering.
Once, when he was closest to us, he turned his head in our direction, and for one dread moment he paused, seeming to gather his folds together as though about to dart upon us, and the bitterness of a frightful death thrilled through me.
The next instant he sped on once more at still greater speed, and before another minute passed the whale was overtaken.
The ocean was, for a single instant, lashed into the semblance of a boiling caldron; we saw a rapid whirling movement of the creature’s enormous coils, and then followed the deep bellowing cries of the tortured whale, and the crunching sound of its crushing bones.
During the minute or two which had passed since our helm was put down, the Lily had been lying to on the starboard tack; our head-sheets still remaining fast on the starboard side.
The seizure of the whale awoke me, as from a horrible nightmare, to the fearful peril to which we still remained exposed; and I jammed the helm hard up, and wore the craft sharp round on her heel until dead before the wind, when I eased off the main-sheet, and we hurried as fast as the wind would take us away from the spot.
As soon as we had got the Water Lily round, and were fairly running away from our dangerous neighbour, we both, with one accord, turned a look astern, to ascertain the condition of things in that quarter.