242 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
boat, swerved from his course and let his com¬ 
panions go on without him. Then he lay 
upon the water motionless as if awaiting the 
boat to attack and disdaining to escape. 
But just as the boat was within striking 
distance and Martin had called to the har- 
pooner, “ Stand up ! ” the whale sounded, only 
to reappear in a few minutes within twenty 
feet of the boat, rushing at it with open jaws 
and evidently bent upon destroying it and its 
occupants. So sudden was the onslaught that 
Martin only saved himself and his crew from 
destruction by slewing the boat’s head round as 
the monster’s jaws snapped together ; but as 
leviathan swept by he gave the boat an “ under 
clip ” with his flukes and tossed her high up in 
the air, to fall back on the water a hopelessly 
stove-in and shattered wreck. And then to the 
terror of the crew as they clung to the broken 
timbers, the whale returned, and the men had to 
separate and swim away, and watched him seize 
the boat in his jaws and literally bite it to pieces, 
tossing the fragments away from him far and 
wide. Then after a minute’s pause, he turned 
over and began swimming on his back, opening 
and shutting his jaws and trying to discover his 
