A VISIT TO SOME STRANQE PLACES. 119 



the opposite direction at undiminished speed. This 

 move was a startler. For the moment it seemed as if 

 both boats would be smashed hke egg-shells against each 

 other, or else that some of us would be impaled upon 

 the long lances with which each boat's bow bristled. 

 By what looked like a hand-breadth, we cleared each 

 other, and the race continued. Up till now we had not 

 succeeded in getting home a single lance, the foe was 

 becoming warier, while the strain was certainly telling 

 upon our nerves. So Mr. Count got out his bomb-gun, 

 shouting at the same time to Mr. Cruce to do the same. 

 They both hated these weapons, nor ever used them if 

 they could help it ; but what was to be done ? 



Our chief had hardly got his gun ready, before we 

 came to almost a dead stop. All was silent for just a 

 moment ; then, with a roar like a cataract, up sprang the 

 huge creature, head out, jaw wide open, coming direct for 

 us. As coolly as if on the quarter-deck, the mate raised 

 his gun, firing the bomb directly down the great livid 

 cavern of a throat fronting him. Down went that 

 mountainous head not six inches from us, but with a 

 perfectly indescribable motion, a tremendous writhe, in 

 fact ; up flew the broad tail in air, and a blow which might 

 have sufficed to stave in the side of the ship struck the 

 second mate's boat fairly amidships. It was right before 

 my eyes, not sixty feet away, and the sight will haunt me 

 to my death. The tub oarsman was the poor German 

 baker, about whom I have hitherto said nothing, except 

 to note that he was one of the crew. That awful blow 

 put an end summarily to all his earthly anxieties. As 

 it shore obliquely through the centre of the boat, it drove 

 his poor body right through her timbers — an undistin- 

 guishable bundle of what was an instant before a human 



