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Updated: May 8, 2025
"Stand by the line, Scotty!" shouted Hank, as he raised the clumsy harpoon-gun to his shoulder. The sailor who had been standing near the barrel nodded, as he drew his sheath-knife from its sheath, holding it between his teeth, ready to cut the line should a tangle occur, but keeping his hands free to attend to the coils of rope.
The reversed screws took the craft astern so as to show the broad back about twenty-five feet away, and Hank fired. The crashing roar of the harpoon-gun was followed by a swirl as the whale sounded for a long dive, but a moment later there came a dull, muffled report from the water, the explosive head of the harpoon, known as the 'bomb, having burst.
"Want the other line?" "Got it!" was the brief reply, and Colin saw that the harpoon-gun had been reloaded. "Sounding again!" called Scotty as the rope fell slack. "No!" yelled Hank. "Stand by, all!" Then suddenly: "Back oars! Back, you lubbers! Hard as you know how!" The oars bent like yew-staves. "Back starboard! Hard!"
Again the boat sped onward, this time without any order from Hank, for all hands had seen the whale not more than fifty yards away, and Hank grasped the shoulder harpoon-gun. But before the boat could reach the whale and turn stern on so as to give the gunner a good chance for a shot, the whale had 'sounded' or dived.
They contained five men each and a steerer, and one had the harpoon-gun fired, with the loose line coiled round and round the head and upper part of the stroke line-manager; and in the others hundreds of fathoms of coiled rope, with toggle-irons, whale-lances, hand-harpoons, and dropped heads, and grins, and lazy abandon, and eyes that stared, and eyes that dozed, and eyes that winked.
In less than five minutes more she spouted again, just a little distance from the calf. Not understanding what had happened, she swam around as though to persuade the little one to follow her, and as she circled round the calf she came within range of the harpoon-gun. It was far too dark to see clearly, but Hank chanced a shot. The sudden roar startled Colin.
Despite his courage, the shock of that tremendous tail striking the water within arm's-length of the boat had shaken his nerve, and the sudden drenching with the icy waters of Behring Sea had taken his breath away. But he was game and stuck to his oar. Looking at Hank, he saw that the old fighter of the seas had dropped the harpoon-gun and was holding poised the long lance.
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