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He parted two enormous masses of seaweed, whose bubble-headed fronds hung curtainwise across his path, and found himself in the very middle of the narrow cleft of rock through which the sea was driven to the Blow-hole. At an immense distance above him was the arch of cliff. Beyond that arch appeared a segment of the ragged edge of the circular opening, down which he had fallen.
The use to the whale of the spermaceti in its head is, that, being much lighter than water, it can rise with great facility to the surface, and elevate its blow-hole above it. Its mouth is of great size, extending all the length of its head, or, as I have said, a third of its whole length.
The monster no longer threw up water alone, but blood was sent in a thick spout from his blow-hole, sprinkling the men in the boats, and staining the bright blue sea around. Still, in spite of all his foes, he struggled on bravely for life.
The words hadn't left his lips when he saw, a few yards in front of them, a faint cloud of steam rising up from the ice that dim danger-signal that flies above an air-hole. The Colonel, never noticing, was heading straight for the ghastly trap. "God, Colonel! Blow-hole!" gasped the Boy. The Colonel simply rolled off the pack turning over and over on the ice, but keeping hold of the rope.
She put on no airs, and she made no pretences. She turned everything she could find into scrambled eggs, and played the "Marseillaise" on her blow-hole. She did herself up into knots to break whalebone, and untied them like a pop of a cork. She was no more female than she was science. She was wrath and earthquakes and the day of judgment.
The mouth extended the whole length of the head, the lower jaw being very narrow and pointed, no thicker in proportion than the lid of a box, supposing the box to be inverted. It had but a single blow-hole, about twelve inches in length, resembling a long S in shape.
The boat, emerging from the archway, entered the pool of the Blow-hole, and, held with the full strength of the party, remained stationary. John Rex watched Burgess scan the rocks and eddies, saw him signal to McNab, and then, with much relief, beheld the boat's head brought round to the sea-board.
The sea-unicorn is, when full grown, from thirteen to sixteen feet long, and has a long spiral horn or tusk growing rather on one side of its upper jaw, of from eight to ten feet in length. The eyes are very small, the blow-hole is directly over them, and the head is small, blunt, and round, and the mouth cannot be opened wide.
I had agreed to go halves with th' Port Albert man, but, you see, he'd ha' never gotten a penny but for me, because he knew nothing whatever about sealing. It didn't look quite fair to give him half; and then I thowt what a lucky thing it would be for me if he were drowned; and he was drowned, but mind you, I didn't do it. It was this way. When we got back to th' blow-hole th' weather was bad.
It was shaped like an irregular triangle, hollowed at the base by the action of the water which in such storms as that of the preceding night was forced into it by the rising of the sea. John Rex dared not crawl too near the edge, lest he should slide out of the damp and slippery orifice, and be dashed upon the rocks at the bottom of the Blow-hole.
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