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"Scared you, I reckon?" he said. "You don't need to feel bad over that. Any one's got a right to be scared when a whale's chargin' the boat. I've been whalin' for nigh on forty-five years an' that's only the second devil-whale I've ever killed with a hand-lance. He pretty near caught us with his flukes that first time, too!"
The California gray whale the devil-whale is what he really is looks a lot worse to me than a killer. He's as ugly-tempered as a spearfish, as vicious as a man-eatin' shark, as tricky as a moray, an' about as relentless as a closin' ice-floe." "There she blo-o-ows!" came the cry again from the crow's-nest.
To Colin the seconds were as years while the old whaler held the gun raised and did not fire. It seemed to the boy as if he were never going to pull the trigger, but the old gunner knew the exact moment, and just as the whale was about to 'sound' the back heaved up slightly, revealing the absence of a dorsal fin, and thus determining that it was a devil-whale in truth; at that instant Hank fired.
Colin would have given millions, if he had possessed them, to pull his oar, to do something to get away from the leviathan charging like an avenging fury for the little boat. But Hank stood motionless. Another second and Colin could almost feel the devil-whale plunging through the frail craft, when Scotty suddenly yelled, "Pull!"
"Finback?" the boy queried. "Gray whale, I reckon," answered the gunner. "Devil-whale? Oh, Hank!" the boy cried, his eyes shining with excitement. "I hope it is!" "That shows how little you know," the other replied. "Are you going to harpoon him?" Hank looked at the boy, smiling slightly at his utter fearlessness. "I wish you were aboard the ship," he said, "an' I would.
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