Half -Light over Cold Seas 75 



waters roil. Then it is gone. The whales are indeed coming and their 

 leader is already only a mile from the end of the fjord. Will he sense 

 that he has entered a trap and turn about to rush among his fellows, 

 warning them, or will he cast himself upon the stony beach? None 

 can tell and nobody dares move or make a sound lest the whale turn 

 about immediately. But he has sunk into the depths and is not seen 

 again, while the uproar from the boats draws swiftly nearer. Now 

 the hammering on the hulls may also be heard and soon also the 

 splashing of oars and then all at once a host fills the fjord and the 

 air is rent with sound. And there, right before them, milling around 

 on the surface or poking their great pointed heads out of the water 

 against the rocks, are the seigval — a good hundred of them, already 

 packed close together and rapidly becoming frantic, as is plain for 

 all to see, for they are swimming not as upon the sea in some order 

 but in all directions and in a most disorderly manner. 



Now the boats are alongside the rope men and Biarni's arm de- 

 scends with a mighty crash upon the key of the ballista. There is a loud 

 "thwang" and a whirring sound as the great spear arcs out over the 

 water, and immediately the uproar is multiplied tenfold as the shore 

 parties now add their voices to those of the boatmen, rocks shower 

 into the fjord, and the women set up a terrific clatter with the 

 shields. The panic-stricken seigval surge forward all together, churn- 

 ing the dark waters to foam, while one of their number, pierced by 

 the harpoon from Biarni's ballista, leaps almost clear of the surface. 

 Blood showers everywhere, and sensing this terrible danger, the 

 whales rush headlong up the fjord. 



But what is this? Something comes boring along the surface of 

 the water towards them like an upturned skuta propelled from be- 

 neath by all the forces of evil in the depths. It is the old bull seigval. 

 He knows now the trap into which the herd has been forced, and 

 he is intent upon making a dash for freedom. Before the boatmen 

 can brace themselves, he is among the oncoming horde, and then by 

 his greater weight he has driven through them and strikes the nets 

 and ropes which are drawn between the boats. These become en- 

 tangled in his flippers but his great tail still drives him forward and 

 all at once it happens: the two center boats are drawn madly to- 

 gether and crash in a mass of foam. There is the sound of splintering 

 wood and one of them upends, caught in a web of ropes. The head 



