Thus importuned, Billy tried his luck. The small harpoon which had been prepared for a chance fling at a porpoise, was let fly at the floundering mass. The aim was true but the iron rebounded as from an oaken plank.
With gasps of wonderment from the boys, the harpoon was hauled back and Billy anxiously tried again. But with the same result.
The huge fish was now seen with its back fin clear out of water in its maddened efforts to swim in the insufficient depth.
“What can it be?” asked Paul, curiously.
“I’m sure I don’t know—certainly not a shark,” replied Fred. Then turning to Billy, he added, “Here—let me have a try at it.”
Billy passed over the harpoon and the boys rowed the boat quite close to the greyish mass so that Fred distinctly saw a great eye.
“Steady boys—quiet now!” warned Fred, raising the weapon above his head.
The big fish lay temporarily resting when Fred launched the iron with all his strength. An accurate aim at the eye which he rightly judged might be vulnerable and the harpoon sunk in the target.
The consuming anxiety of the next few moments seemed like eternity to the boys as they wondered whether they could win out in the mad battle that began the very moment the harpoon struck in. The water was churned as if by a great paddle-wheel; the spray flew over everything while the fish whopped forward, then suddenly backed, then flung itself from side to side in an agonised and frenzied plunge for safety. The harpoon held good however, and Fred paid out about thirty fathoms of line before the victim became exhausted.
It succeeded in gaining deeper water in the frantic battle for life, and had not the iron held securely, the unwieldy fish would surely have broken away to its freedom in the sea.