Читать книгу Dick Rodney; or, The Adventures of an Eton Boy онлайн

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"'A whale!—a whale!—in the shoal water!'

"And there, sure enough, far up the bay, we saw one sporting and gambolling, blowing and diving; and though it was a kind of robbery, perhaps, we resolved to make a dash at him, for the place was lonely, and not a Norwegian eye upon us—not a house upon the shore, nor a man upon the mountains, so far as we could discern by our glasses.

"The boats were cleared, the harpoons prepared, the lines were coiled away in the tubs, and the schooner was hove short on her anchor; but just as we lowered the whaling-punts, down dived our fish, tail uppermost, and then we knew that he was searching for his favorite food, of which plenty is to be found in these Norwegian fiords."

"What is it?" said I.

"A kind of small salt-water snail, and the medusa, or sea-blubber. As you have been at Eton, you must have read all about it in Linnæus," continued our learned Scotch mate. "Just as the first boat was lowered, the schooner received a shock so violent that her masts strained almost to snapping; her bows were dragged down till her billet-head dipped in the water, and every thing and everybody on deck went toppling and tumbling forward in a heap about the windlass bitts. Then a shower of bloody spray fell over us as the craft righted again, but with such violence that the water splashed under the counter and over the quarter. Then she was torn through the sea at the rate of thirty knots an hour!