Before they had time to dart away she dived head foremost. Raising her great tail she swept it around and around, churning the water into foam. One dreadful blow crushed a killer, and the others rushed away. Seizing the trembling baby between her flippers and neck the mother hurried on to catch up with the herd again.
This was excitement enough for one day. Indeed, it was the greatest adventure of the year, except for the narrow escape from the ice-floe. This last adventure happened when the herd was just leaving the north to swim south again. The baby whale was quite a big fellow by this time. By some accident he found himself shut into a bay by a floating mass of ice.
The ice-floe covered the water and was driving closer and closer to the shore. The young whale swam ahead of it till he was almost on the beach. Still it kept pressing nearer and nearer. Again and again he tried to swim under it, but he could not hold his breath long enough to get through to the open sea. If he could not breathe he would drown, just like any other mammal.
Finally, just as the ice was rubbing against the big black sides, he raised himself high in the air and threw his heavy body with a crash down on the floe. Luckily, he happened to strike a thin place. The immense cake of ice cracked and split. The whale gave a plunge and broke his way through to safety. He was glad enough to find the herd again and swim on with them toward the southern waters.
So down along the shore the huge beasts went frolicking together. They leaped out of the sea, turning summersaults and tumbling over and over. They patted one another with such resounding smacks of their flippers that the noise was like thunder. Now they darted ahead, leaving a wake of dancing foam; now they dived, arching their backs, and flirting their tails high in the air. And through the quiet nights they lay with the waves lapping softly against them, with the starlight glistening upon the great black bodies rolling in the swell.