“Good; an’ the next day we sail—so, my friend, I’ll have the satisfaction of dancing at your wedding before I go.”
“I know not as to dancing,” said Angut, with a grave smile, “but we are to have kick-ball, and a feast.”
“I’m game for both, or any other sort o’ fun you like,” returned the seaman heartily.
While they were speaking they observed a youth running towards them in great haste, and in a state of violent excitement. A whale, he said, had stranded itself in a shallow bay not far off, and he was running to let the people of the settlement know the good news.
The commotion occasioned by this event is indescribable. Every man and boy who could handle a kayak took to the water with harpoon and lance. Ippegoo, Arbalik, Okiok, Simek, Norrak, and Ermigit were among them, in borrowed kayaks, and mad as the maddest with glee. Even Kajo joined them. He was as drunk as the proverbial fiddler, having obtained rum from the sailors, and much more solemn than an owl.
While these hastened to the conflict, the women and children who could run or walk proceeded by land to view the battle.
And it was indeed a grand fight! The unlucky monster had got thoroughly embayed, and was evidently in a state of consternation, for in its efforts to regain deep water it rushed hither and thither, thrusting its blunt snout continually on some shoal, and wriggling off again with difficulty and enormous splutter. The shouts of men, shrieks of women, and yells of children co-mingled in stupendous discord.
Simek, the mighty hunter, was first to launch his harpoon. It went deep and was well aimed. Blood dyed the sea at once, and the efforts of the whale to escape were redoubled. There was also danger in this attack, for no one could tell, each time the creature got into water deep enough to float in, to what point of the shore its next rush would be.
“Look out!” cried Rooney in alarm, for, being close to Arbalik in a kayak, he saw that the whale was coming straight at them. It ran on a shoal when close to them, doubled round in terror and whirled its great tail aloft.
Right over Arbalik’s head the fan-like mass quivered for one moment. The youth did not give it a chance. Over he went and shot down into the water like an eel, just as the tail came down like a thunder-clap on his kayak, and reduced it to a jumble of its shattered elements, while Rooney paddled out of danger. Arbalik swam ashore, and landed just in time to see the whale rise out of the water, lifting Ippegoo in his kayak on its shoulders. The electrified youth uttered a shriek of horror in which the tone of surprise was discernible, slid off, kayak and all, into the sea—and was none the worse!