“There they are!” said he pointing to where the water was lashed up and broken into foam, about half a mile ahead of the ship, amidst which a couple of dark bodies could be seen tumbling about—one occasionally jumping up high in the air and coming down on the other with a thud, and a smack that sounded like the crack of a whip, or report of a rifle. “There they are, Miss Meldrum, I saw them first!”
“Come down out of that, sir, at once!” screamed out his mother, with a pant and a puff between each word, her breath having been almost taken away by her unusually quick movements in getting forwards. “Have I not ordered you never to go up those ropes?”
“Oh, bother, ma!” exclaimed the young hopeful, paying not the slightest attention to his mother’s command. He had been so spoilt, petted at one time and scolded another, that all her authority over him was lost save in name. “There! bravo, little one—oh, my, wasn’t that a good one, now?”
And so, Mrs Major Negus—abandoning any expectation of making Maurice descend from his perch in the shrouds, where, however, she could see that he was in no imminent danger, for he had one of the sailors on either side of him who would catch him should he slip—was obliged perforce to do as all the rest were doing and gaze at the thrilling marine drama that was being acted out with such tragic earnestness on the surface of the deep before their eyes.
A black-fish—which, it may be mentioned here, for the benefit of the uninitiated, is a species of cachalot, although differing from the true spermaceti family of whales in having the spout-holes placed on the top of the head, in place of on the snout, and the pectoral fins shorter—was being assailed by its bitter enemy the thresher or “fox shark.” This latter is one of the most peculiar fishes to be seen throughout the length and breadth of the ocean, that world of living wonders; for it has a most extraordinary face, or head, which is more like that of an ape than of one of the piscine tribe; while its tail is divided into two lobes or blades, one of which is small and insignificant, and the other larger than the body of the animal, curling up at the end like the tail-feather of a bird of paradise.
There could be no comparison between the two combatants, in respect to size at least; for, while the whale was some fifty feet long—nearly a third of the length of the Nancy Bell—the thresher could not have exceeded thirteen feet; and as for girth, the former was in proportion like a portly, Daniel-Lambert sort of man put by the side of a starving street urchin of seven. The only advantage the thresher apparently possessed was in its eyes, which, when one could get a glimpse of them, looked like those of a hawk; while the unwieldy cetacean had little tiny optics, not much bigger than those of a common haddock, which were placed in an unwieldy lump of a head, that seemed ever so much bigger than its body, with a tremendous lower jaw containing a row of teeth, each one of which was nearly a foot long.
The thresher, seemingly, had only the advantage of his antagonist in the proportionate size of his eyes; but, “just wait till you have seen him use his long feather-like tail!” as Maurice Negus said, and you will arrive at the conclusion that the combatants were not so very unequally matched after all.
The very size of the black-fish militated against his chances for, while it took him more than his own length to turn in the water, the thresher darted, here, there and everywhere, like an eel—just getting out of his reach when the other thought he had got him and had opened his ponderous jaws to crush him. It was at this moment that his agile tormentor, seizing his opportunity, would leap out of the water and give the whale a “whack” on his side behind the fin, one of his tenderest spots, the blow resounding far and wide over the water and probably leaving a weal if not an indentation in the animal’s side.
Mr Zachariah Lathrope got quite interested, bobbing from one side of the topgallant-forecastle to the other, and trying to obtain the best view he could of the contest.
“Bully for the little scorpion, marm!” he exclaimed to “the Major,” as he shoved his hands down into his trouser pockets and seemed to lift himself up in his eagerness. “I’ll bet my bottom dollar he’ll fix that air whale to rights! By gosh, that wer a sockdolager; I guess the big varmint is kinder gettin’ riled!”