Half-Light over Warm Seas 99 



tried their hardest not to let their oars clatter or even squeak, for the 

 kujira is a very shy and sensitive creature, and is easily disturbed. 

 Half an hour later the lead boat, steered by one Naosuke Tomada, 

 raised a signal in the form of a piece of cloth on a long bamboo pole 

 and waved it in the general direction of the northeast. This indi- 

 cated that the whales were breaching in that quarter and were still 

 heading towards a position that would coincide with the line of ad- 

 vance, but other signals indicated that more speed would be needed 

 to get to that point in time. Every steersman immediately gave a 

 brief command, and all men bent to their oars. 



Very soon a lot of funnel-shaped, white fountains of spume could 

 be seen rising from the sea in groups of four or five, one after the 

 other. It was the whales spouting, and they were not more than half 

 a mile away. Then Jindo San gave a command by two strokes on a 

 small gong; this carried clearly across the waters, and every oar 

 came to rest so that the boats just drifted forward in formation. This 

 was the critical moment, for should the whales notice them and take 

 alarm at their presence, they might turn about and go charging out 

 to sea, while if they continued and did not by mistake come up 

 under a boat, they might pass right under them. Time seemed to 

 stand still while the whales kept breaching, blowing regularly, and 

 rolling below again as they moved ever closer to the boats. 



Now, liye and her brother were on the inner line about the middle 

 of the fleet, only two boats from the big one commanded by Masa- 

 toshi and next to that of Jindo San, and it was soon clear to all that 

 it was precisely to this point that the leading whale was heading. 

 The boats roundabout, therefore, began to turn their prows to the 

 ocean so that they might present the smallest obstacles to the oncom- 

 ing beasts and at the same time allow the harpooners, standing ready 

 in the bows of the inner line of boats, to take the best advantage of 

 every second that might elapse from the first breaching of the ani- 

 mals between the boats and the time when the oarsmen could get 

 within throwing distance of that spot. In this, liye's position as for- 

 ward oar in her boat suddenly became of first importance, but she 

 was so strong and so eager that her first pulls, though made with 

 skillful silence, were so deceptively powerful she brought the boat 

 about almost singlehanded, and they were in position long before 

 any of the others. At that very instant the lead whale broke the 



