He was pointing at the whale. Up towards its head, on the port side, there appeared on the water a long tail, or fin, at right angles with the whale.
“What in tarnation d’ye s’pose that critter is?” demanded Captain Tugg.
The thing was all of four and twenty feet long, about two wide at the upper end, and tapering to eighteen inches. Almost at once the living club was elevated in the air and then was flung down across the whale’s back—just behind where the head was attached to its body—with a noise like a signal gun.
“Will ye looker that now!” bawled the Captain, in wonder.
Again and again the monstrous club rose and descended. The great whale leaped like a beaten horse under the rain of blows; but whichever way it turned, it could not shake off its assailant. The operator of that club seemed to have it under perfect control, and likewise had means of keeping up with the victim no matter in which direction, or how fast, the latter swam. The blows fell only a few seconds apart, and the whale finally sounded to escape them.
But when he came up again, there was the mysterious enemy, hanging to the whale like a bull dog, and the beating re-commenced. The sea about the hectored whale was tinged with blood. The creature’s back was lacerated frightfully and without any doubt whatsoever, it was being beaten to death by its antagonist.
Tugg grew greatly excited, and ordered a boat lowered. We took four sailors and left Pedro in command of the becalmed schooner, and rowed off towards the scene of the battle between the whale and the mysterious fish.
“It must be some kind of a huge ray,” I suggested. “That’s the tail that is being used like a club.”
“By the e-tar-nal snakes!” exploded Tugg, “it’s a different kind of a sea-bat from anything I ever seed or heard of. You take it from me, that’s a sea-sarpint, or wuss!”
The whale was evidently at its last gasp when we left the schooner. It soon rolled over on its side. The mysterious flail stopped beating the huge body and the water seemed churned excitedly at the nose of the leviathan.