"That's just what I do," exclaimed the professor, apprehensively.
"The creature is a killer whale—an animal as ferocious as a shark and far more bold. I should have recognized what it was when I saw that sharp fin cruising about."
"We must row back," shouted Frank, and he and Harry sprang to the oars.
But they were too late. With a flashing whisk of its tail the ferocious killer whale dived, and when it came up its head was within twenty feet of the boat.
"Pull for that floe!" shouted the professor, pointing to a small island of ice floating about not far from them. It was their only chance of escape, and the boys gave way with a will. But pull as they would their enemy was faster than they. Just as the nose of their boat scraped the floe the great "killer" charged.
Frank had just time to spring onto the floe and drag Harry after him when the monster's head rammed the boat, splitting it to kindling wood with a terrible crackling sound. The stout timbers might as well have been a matchbox, so far as resistance to the terrific onslaught was concerned.
Billy jumped just as the boat collapsed under him, and gained the floe. But where was the professor?
For an instant the terrible thought that he had perished flashed across the boys' minds, but just then a cry made them look round, and they saw the unfortunate scientist, blue with cold and dripping with icy water, come clambering over the other side of the little floe on which they stood. He had been hurled out of the boat when the whale charged and cast into the water. His teeth were chattering so that he could hardly speak, but he still had his bucket, and insisted on examining it to see if any creatures had been caught in it when he took his involuntary plunge.
The whale, after its charge and the terrific bump with which it struck the boat, seemed to be stunned and lay quietly on the water a few feet from the floe, from which it had rebounded.
"I'll bet he's got a headache," exclaimed Billy.