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If, then, you properly put these statements together, and reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, according to all human reasoning, Procopius's sea-monster, that for half a century stove the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm whale. Surmises.
Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed vessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty years. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be.
The people of Ebuda, out of love and pity, kept her, unexposed to the sea-monster, for some days; but at length she was bound to the rock where it was accustomed to seek its food; and thus, in tears and horror, with not a friend to look to, the delight of the world expected her fate. East and west she looked in vain; to the heavens she looked in vain; every where she looked in vain.
In a moment I was assailed with epithets that... and not a word is to be got in when he is so violent. One has to make up one's mind to act Andromeda, and let him be the sea-monster, as somebody has said; I forget the exact origin of the remark. The squire certainly had a whole ocean at command. I strung myself to pass through the same performance. To my astonishment I went unchallenged.
A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven moons over his loss. When the Huns lured the king into the great pit, he flung it away, Procopius tells the story, nor was it ever found again, though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundred-weight of gold pieces for it.
Of what precise species this sea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as well as for other reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am strongly inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it.
On came the great sea-monster, coasting along like a huge black galley, lazily breasting the ripple, and stopping at times by creek or headland to watch for the laughter of girls at their bleaching, or cattle pawing on the sand-hills, or boys bathing on the beach.
The fishes splashed and tumbled about her, hurrying to get away from this strange, new sea-monster that had come into their midst. The little captain felt no mental sensation except one of wonder and of awe; no physical impression save a pressure as of a great weight on her head and a roaring of mighty waters in her ears. She no longer had any idea of being afraid.
Complete satisfaction is found in hitting the thing itself; no doubt regret would be felt if any one were injured, but if the stone resounds upon the iron frame of the moving devil, the satisfaction is felt that the best of us might experience from hitting the scaly sides of a slumbering sea-monster, for hit him we would, though at immediate risk of perdition.
On we tore, with the steam-gauge uncomfortably near danger point; the warship in hot pursuit, looking, wreathed as she was in the smoke and flame of her fiercely worked guns, and the electric glare of the vivid shaft which still turned night into day, more like some fabulous sea-monster than a fabric contrived by man.
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