“It does look uncommon like it,” replied the Captain, with a perplexed expression on his rugged visage. “Get out the rifles, lad! It’s as well to be ready. D’ye know what it is, Chingatok?”
Again the giant uttered the unpronounceable name, while Benjy got out the fire-arms with eager haste.
“Load ’em all, Ben, load ’em all, an’ cram the Winchester to the muzzle,” said the Captain. “There’s no sayin’ what we may have to encounter; though I have heard of a gigantic bit of seaweed bein’ mistaken for the great sea-serpent before now.”
“That may be, father,” said Benjy, with increasing excitement, “but nobody ever saw a bit of seaweed swim with the activity of a gigantic eel like that. Why, I have counted its coils as they rise and sink, and I’m quite sure it’s a hundred and fifty yards long if it’s an inch.”
Those in the other boats were following the Captain’s example,—getting out and charging the fire-arms,—and truly there seemed some ground for their alarm, for the creature, which approached at a rapid rate, appeared most formidable. Yet, strange to say, the Eskimos paid little attention to it, and seemed more taken up with the excitement of the white men.
When the creature had approached to within a quarter of a mile, it diverged a little to the left, and passed the boats at the distance of a few hundred yards. Then Captain Vane burst into a sudden laugh, and shouted:—
“Grampuses!”
“What?” cried Leo.
“Grampuses!” repeated the Captain. “Why, it’s only a shoal of grampuses following each other in single file, that we’ve mistaken for one creature!”
Never before was man or boy smitten with heavier disappointment than was poor Benjy Vane on that trying occasion.