Orca Gladiator. 
7 
and fierce spirit render him a dangerous 
customer to tackle. But with the right whale, 
the humpback, and the seventy-foot flying 
finback, the killers can work their cruel will. 
And now to the fight we saw. 
For about ten minutes or so the great hump¬ 
back dragged his monstrous fifty feet of flesh 
and blubber across the tops of the submerged 
rocks, raising sometimes his vast head and some¬ 
times his mighty flukes out of the water, as with 
all the weight of his giant body he rubbed, 
and scraped, and scratched his itching belly 
against the surface of the rocks. Suddenly, 
a long, slender, greyish object swept like 
lightning upon him, and the thresher buried 
his teeth in the loose skin of his “ small ”—that 
is, about fifteen or sixteen feet from his tail. 
And at the same moment, with savage puffs of 
spray shooting high from their blow-holes, the 
two killers darted at his head and seized him by 
the jaws. In ten seconds there was nought to 
be seen but a maddened whirl and seeth of 
foam, as the unfortunate victim sought to 
escape seaward. Well did he know that in 
such shallow water—there was but five or six 
