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Well, for some two or three hours we held fast, but could not haul on to him to use the lance, for the moment we came close up alongside of his tail he peaked flukes and dived, then up again, and away as fast as ever. It was about noon before we touched him again; but by that time two more harpoons were made fast, and two other boats cast tow-lines aboard of us, and were hauled along.
At length the survivors were picked up, and the two boats returned on board. The men, as they came alongside, looked very downcast. Three of our shipmates had disappeared two of whom had been crushed by the monster's jaws, the other killed by the blow of his flukes as many more were severely injured, the third mate was among the killed.
A humpback is more in bulk an' has only a short fin on the back, it's a clumsy beast an' throws the flukes of the tail out of the water in soundin'. Now, a finback is built more for speed an' has a big fin on the back that's where it gets its name. The big sulphurbottom is a kind of finback, an' is the largest animal livin'. I've seen one eighty-five feet long!"
But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough, the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of muscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins and running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and largely contribute to their might; so that in the tail the confluent measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point.
It had two fins, one on each side, just behind the head. With these, and with its tail, the whale swims and fights. Its tail is its most deadly weapon. The flukes of this one measured thirteen feet across, and with one stroke of this it could have smashed our largest boat in pieces. Many a boat has been sent to the bottom in this way.
It was just in time, for, in his agony, the whale tossed his tail right over our heads, the flukes were so big that they could have completely covered the boat, and he brought them down flat on the sea with a clap that made our ears tingle, while a shower of spray drenched us to the skin.
At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap, then sideways recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy between. In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely defined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost expansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed twenty feet across.
In other words, kill the flukes before they enter the Lani." "Old Doc never said anything about this," Blalok said. "Probably he never knew about it. I was looking over the herd books last night, and I saw nothing about trematodes, or anything that looked like a parasite pattern until the last few months." "Why not?" "My guess is that he was one of the first deaths."
He caught the boat as she was retreating, in an instant capsizing her, and sending all her crew struggling in the waves. I thought he would immediately have destroyed them; but he swam on, they happily escaping the blows of his flukes, and went head out across the ocean, followed by the first boat and the two others. Were they going to allow our shipmates to perish unaided?
He managed to draw himself upon the ledge where the monster laid, though the sea caught him to the arm pits before he could do it, and found his prize to be fully fourteen feet long from snout to flukes. He plunged the knife into its throat to make sure of the work.
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