I thought they were trying to scare me. But I learned later that it was not an uncommon thing for an old whale to use a ship’s keel to rub himself against—it scrapes off the barnacles!
I just gave old Tom a grim look, however, and seized the harpoon. We were creeping up on the bull and I intended to make a good cast. The creature was weaving slowly along and not paying any attention to our boat at all. My! he did look enormous. The nearer we came to him the more threatening was his appearance. He was more than a hundred feet long, I was sure. He would have weighed as much as twenty-five of the biggest elephants that ever showed in a menagerie.
I am free to confess I felt queer, as that slate-colored monster loomed up before our bow. With one flop of its tail it could smash the craft and give us all a ducking—perhaps kill half the crew. Many of the old whalers’ yarns I remembered as I poised that heavy shaft.
But then old Tom whispered: “Now!” I let go with all my might. The harpoon sunk into the huge bull until half its staff was hidden! I had made as pretty a cast as ever Tom Anderly could himself.
Our craft shot backward while the bull gave a startled plunge forward, and the line began to run out fast. In half a minute the beast sounded and we prepared for a long fight. But suddenly he was up again and shot two or three geysers of water into the air. He lay still and we began to take in the slack.
“Call this a fight?” muttered the second mate, with scorn.
I had slipped into my seat and the mate was changing with Tom again, bent upon using the gun for the finishing touches. Suddenly the old bull started. He did not come for the boat but headed directly for the bark, lying not more than half a mile away. He went so fast we could scarcely see the harpoon line. He made the sea about him boil, and the waves in his wake (for we were close up to him) almost swamped us.
“What’s he going to do?” screamed Gibson.
“Holy mackerel!” groaned the stroke oarsman. “He’s going to bunt the old hooker.”