Like a spurred horse the whale started ahead. I declare, it seemed as though half his length came out of the sea at the first jump. The line whizzed over the bow as though it were tackled to a fast express.
“Pull!” yelled Ben and we laid to the oars so that when the line ran out the shock would not be so great. When the first line was all out and Tom bent on another we were rushing through the water like mad. We passed the captain’s boat just after he had struck on himself and his kill had sounded.
“Go it, young man!” yelled Captain Rogers, standing up and waving his hat to his nephew, “you’re going out of town faster than you’ll come back.”
All we could do in that double-ended boat was to sit still and hold tight. I candidly believe that we traveled at a speed of a mile minute. I had once been aboard of a turbine launch, and the black water was thrown up on either side of that whaleboat in a wave just as it had flowed away from the nose of the launch!
This wave seemed to be three feet higher than the gunwale of the boat and as black as ebony. Even Tom Anderly cast a glance at the boat-hatchet as though he contemplated cutting the taut line. Our eyes were blinded by the wind which seemed to be blowing a hurricane. Actually there was scarcely a breath stirring over the surface of the placid ocean.
Our locomotive went directly through the school. Its mates rolled placidly and eyed us as we shot by with wicked glance. But none of them followed the boat which continued to tear through the water with undiminished speed.
But after a time we found that we had company, and mighty unpleasant company, too. In the boiling wake of the whaleboat I could see a dozen triangular fins—the fins of the real tiger shark of the tropics. Not a nice spectacle to men in such a situation as ours. Secretly I was frightened, and I reckon even the oldest in the boat’s crew felt serious.
The mad whale was taking us farther and farther away from the bark and our friends. Indeed, the Scarboro was wiped out of sight, it seemed, within a very few minutes, and the other three boats were lost behind us, too.
The runaway, however, did not continue straight ahead. Its speed did not seem to slacken in the least; but soon it began to circle around, finding itself without its mates.
“If the old feller don’t put on brakes pretty soon the harpoon’ll git so hot it’ll melt the blubber and pull out,” chuckled the stroke-oar.