404 THE FRANKLIN SEARCH— IMS-bl. 



feet bone : the fish was floating at the edge of the floe, and the boat's crew 

 would fain have had ours to join them in the laborious and irksome task of 

 hauling in their lines. But we had no idea of this when there was sport to 

 participate in a little farther on : so, after a few minutes spent in asking 

 questions — how many lines she had taken out, etc., all of which seem so 

 interesting to the true whaler, we had regained breath, and pulled onwards. 

 About three miles farther on we found a second boat with her 'jack ' flying, 

 denoting that she was fast. Passing close to this boat, we found that the 

 fish was taking out line with great force and rapidity, and that the harpooner 

 was rather doubtful as to his being ' well fast ' or not ; that is to say, he was 

 uncertain whether his harpoon was securely inserted into the whale. He 

 had fired at a long range just as the fish was going down. We pulled in the 

 direction in which she was 'heading,' where the rest of the boats already 

 were. Before we got up to them, she had made her appearance at the 

 surface. A second boat had got fast to her, and just in time, as she was seen 

 to be ' loose ' from the first. She did not take out much line from this boat, 

 but remained away a considerably longer time than usual, greatly to our 

 astonishment, until we found that she was ' blowing ' in some holes in the 

 floe, a good distance from the edge of it. One of the harpooners imme- 

 diately proceeded over the ice with a hand-harpoon, trailing the end of the 

 line with him, assisted by part of his crew, and from the edge of the hole 

 drove his weapon into the body of the poor whale; whilst some of the 

 others following plied the bleeding wretch with their long lances, so that she 

 was soon obliged to betake herself again to the open water outside the floe. 

 Here more of her enemies were waiting, for our boat was immediately upon 

 her, and a gun-harpoon was at once driven almost out of sight into her huge 

 side, which was already bristling with weapons. Our boat was on her very 

 back as she dived, with an unwieldy roll, which sent it surging gunwale 

 under, taking the line whistling out for a score fathoms, until the harpooner, 

 knowing she was pretty well exhausted, stopped her way, by taking three 

 or four turns round the ' bollard.' But every few seconds she would make 

 a start, drawing the boat almost head under, until the line was permitted 

 to run out again, which, as it did so, made a grinding, burring noise, eating 

 deep into the hard lignum vitse of the bollard, enveloping the harpooner in 

 smoke, and causing the most distinct smell of burning, which was only pre- 

 vented from actually taking place by the line-manager throwing water con- 

 stantly on it. 



" Again she appeared at the surface, but far exhausted, still she made a 

 strong fight for it, lashing about with her tail and fins in fury whenever she 

 seemed to have regained breath. It was no very pleasant sight to see her 

 tail quivering high up in the air within but a short distance of us, and coming 

 doAvn on the water with a loud sharp crack like the report of a dozen rifles. 



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