Suddenly, the thresher gave another violent bound upwards into the air from the surface of the ensanguined water, leaping almost over the whale; and, as he fell back again into the sea, his tail, which was bent like a bow, delivered a terrible lash, surpassing any of its previous attempts. At the same time, as if by a concerted movement, those on board could see—for the combatants were now so close alongside the ship that the bight of a rope could have been easily hove over them—one of the sword-fish made a dart at the exposed flank of the whale, burying its ugly saw-like weapon almost up to the head and inflicting a wound that must have been mortal.
The black-fish instantly emitted a sort of hollow muffled roar; and, sending up a fountain of watery spray mixed with blood from its spout-holes, splashed the sea violently with its formidable flukes, after which it rolled over, rocking from side to side in its last dying flurry or death agony.
“I guess he’s a gone coon!” said the American, hitching up his trousers again and turning over the quid of tobacco in his mouth. “It seems a terrible pity to waste him though. There’s a powerful sight of blubber in that air animile!” and the speaker appeared to gaze sadly at the carcase of the conquered cetacean as it floated by.
“It’s all over,” said Mr Meldrum, turning from the now pitiful spectacle with disgust. “Come away, girls!” But Kate had long since left the scene, the sight not having been of a nature to suit her tender heart; and, she was now far away aft with Frank Harness, sitting in a secluded corner of the poop, where she could see nothing of the sanguinary ending of the contest. Florry, on the contrary, had remained to the last, as well as Mrs Major Negus—who, it may be observed, had watched the struggle from its commencement to its close with almost as much interest as her enthusiastic son and heir; and Mr Meldrum had much difficulty in tearing the little girl away from her rapt contemplation of the dead whale.
“Stop a minute, papa,” she urged when he took hold of her arm to draw her from the rail. “Do look! they have all left him now they have killed him. I wonder what they quarrelled about?”
“Sure, an’ just for the same rayson, missy, that Christians hate sich other,” said Mr McCarthy, “just for no cause at all, but bekaze they can’t help it, alannah! And now that the little divils have kilt him, sure they’ve swum off and left the poor crathur to die, just the same as some ov us does to sich other, more’s the pity, by the same token!”
It was true enough.
The thresher and his active allies had all at once disappeared, how, when, or where, none of those looking on could tell; the lifeless body of the black-fish only remaining in evidence of the battle that had taken place.
There it was, floating sluggishly on the heavy rolling swell of the ocean, in solitary grandeur; for the dolphins and “Portuguese men-of-war” that had been seen earlier in the afternoon had taken themselves off as soon as the light began—evidently preferring calmer scenes and not relishing the proximity of such inveterate enemies of their several species as the late combatants.