now THEY SURPRISE ‘‘OLD GRAYBACK.” 477 
to be within less than lialf that distance of him, as he 
blew his steam-like spout and again resumed his motion- 
less position on the surface. 
“ In the mean time, the other fifteen or twenty boats 
were similarly engaged, and, an hour or more having now 
passed without any change in the programme, we began 
to think that our sport might not come off, after all, wdien 
suddenly old Grayback, who had been cruising under 
water for some time, lost his reckoning and rose under 
the very bows of one of the motionless boats, and, 1)efore 
aware of his dangerous locality, received the ready har- 
poon into his unsuspecting blubber. 
“ I think he must have sprung at least ten feet clear of 
the water, and for more than a second his huge frame, 
bent and doubled up by surprise or agony, was encircled 
by air only. Then he came down, and oh, what a 
splash was there, my countrymen !” It reverberated over 
the whole harbour, and raised a swell over which the 
boat rose and fell as in a sea-way. 
“ ‘ Starn all !' It was the clear, nasal voice of the Down- 
east boat-steerer, which came to us across the water 
almost as soon as the weapon had left his powerful 
grasp. 
“And it was time to ^ starn all;’ for, though the light 
boat sprang like a thing of life more than her length 
from the effects of the looked-for leap, yet she had no- 
thing to spare : the writhing monster struck the water 
within a few feet of the bow, and then turned for deep 
•water with fearful velocity. At first they ‘give him 
line,’ then slowly ‘check him,’ and, finally, boil along in 
his foaming wake, as the powerful sweep of the trailing 
