At the same moment they heard a loud rushing sound like escaping steam, a column of spray was thrown high in the air, and they caught a glimpse of a huge black object sinking out of sight but a short distance from them. As it disappeared, their boat was rocked violently on the waves that surged over the place where it had been.
Both the boys were terribly startled, and for a moment greatly frightened, by this mysterious occurrence. They had instinctively begun bailing the water from the dory almost as soon as they found that she still floated right side up. Breeze was the first to recover the breath which had been nearly driven from his body by the shock of his overthrow, and now he gasped out,
“Do you think it was an earthquake, Wolfe?” Before Wolfe could answer, a large whale, evidently the mate of the one that had given them such a scare, rose to the surface to blow, a hundred yards to one side of them, and Breeze exclaimed, “So that’s what it was! Well, I’m mighty glad he didn’t come along and hoist us on his back while the dory was loaded down as she was half an hour ago.”
“So am I,” began Wolfe, “but hello!” he cried, stopping his bailing and starting up. “Whatever has got into the old Vixen? She must have a steam-engine aboard.”
A LARGE WHALE ROSE TO THE SURFACE TO BLOW
Breeze looked, and, to his astonishment, saw the schooner moving away from them, and going through the water at a speed of ten or twelve knots an hour[knots an hour]. Her sails were still furled, and apparently her anchor was still down; but she was certainly moving, and that at a rapid rate. The white water was foaming under her bows, and a wake, like that of a steamer, was trailing and eddying behind her.
“It’s one of those whales, and he’s caught a fluke of her anchor in his blow-hole or in his jaws. Yes, sir, he’s running away with her!” exclaimed Breeze, who had heard his father describe a similar occurrence as having happened to him once on the Banks.
“That’s what it must be,” said Wolfe. “But it beats anything I ever heard of. My eye! isn’t she going, though!”
“Well,” remarked Breeze, as they watched the rapidly vanishing schooner, “I should say that fishing in these waters was pretty exciting work. I know it beats mackerelling, or life on George’s. Do you know whether it is always as lively here as it seems to be this morning, Wolfe?”