But before he had finished, the light skiff, with a tremendous splash, struck the water again, and the little coil of rope to which the harpoon was attached flew humming over the gunwale and disappeared with astonishing speed into the deep.
Bernt seized the cord, and when there was little left to spare, tied it firmly to the prow of the boat, which then, of course, leaped forward with every effort of the dolphin to rid itself of the harpoon. The rest of the school, having taken alarm, had sought deep water, and were seen, after a few minutes, far out beyond the headland.
“I want to go home, Bernt,” Hilda exclaimed, vehemently. “I want to go home; I don’t want to get killed, Bernt.”
“You silly thing! You can’t go home now. You must just do as I tell you; but, of course—if you only are sensible—you won’t get killed, or hurt at all.”
While he was yet speaking, the boat began all of a sudden to move rapidly over the water.
The dolphin had bethought him of flight, not knowing that, however swiftly he swam, he pulled his enemy after him. As he rose to the surface, about fifty or sixty yards ahead, a small column of water shot feebly upward, and spread in a fan-like, irregular shape before it fell. The poor beast floundered along for a few seconds, its long, black body in full view, and then again dived down, dragging the boat onward with a series of quick convulsive pulls.
Bernt held on tightly to the cord, while the water foamed and bubbled about the prow and surged in swirling eddies in the wake of the skiff.
“If I can only manage to get that dolphin,” said Bernt, “I know father will give me at least a dollar for him. There’s lots of blubber on him, and that is used for oil to burn in lamps.”
The little girl did not answer, but grasped the gunwale hard on each side, and gazed anxiously at the foaming and bubbling water. Bernt, too, sat silent in the prow, but with a fisherman’s excitement in his face. The sun hung, huge and fiery, over the western mountains, and sent up a great, dusky glare among the clouds, which burned in intense but lurid hues of red and gold. Gradually, and before they were fully aware of it, the boat began to rise and descend again, and Bernt discovered by the heavy, even roll of the water that they must be near the ocean.
“Now you may stop, my dear dolphin,” he said, coolly. “We don’t want you to take us across to America. Who would have thought that you were such a tough customer anyway?”