A strange groaning bellow came from the whale, but he plunged on desperately. Again the orca launched its twenty-five feet of length into the air and came down on the poor bowhead; and now another appeared, and the two alternately beat the frenzied and exhausted whale till it apparently had what little breath there was left hammered out of its body. Right alongside he gave up the fight and rolled motionless on the surface. The bellow had already subsided to a moan; this was followed by a gasp or two, and the bowhead ceased to breathe, turned on his side with the flipper in the air, dead before the boat could get alongside and finish the matter. The orcas had literally hammered the exhausted whale to death, and were now tearing at his lip to get his mouth open and devour the soft, spongy tongue, which is their chief delight. They seemed to pay no attention to the ship or the boat, and Harry had a good opportunity to see the behavior of these wild wolves of the sea before the boatswain, with much indignation, lanced them both to death. “You’ll try to eat up my whale, will you, you blasted davy devils! Take that—and that—and that!” and with every “that” the keen lance searched the vitals of the gnawing orcas. One died still voraciously tearing at the whale’s under lip, but the other turned at the blow of the lance and bit at what had stung it, taking the bow of the boat in its jaws and crushing and shaking it in the final agony as a terrier might worry a cat. The great teeth crunched the wood, and the men, with cries of terror, were shaken out of the boat, but luckily none were caught in the grasp of the jaws. The lance-thrust was deadly, and in a moment the orcas lay, belly up, beside the dead whale. The men were so near the side of the ship that ropes were thrown to them and they clambered aboard, after some trouble to save the gear and the crushed boat, which was towed alongside and hoisted on deck. Thus ended the first adventure with a school of bowheads in the Arctic. Not so badly, though the whales had been much more lively and the events far more exciting than is common in the pursuit of this gentlest of cetaceans. A week of calm, warm weather followed, and at the end of that time the three whales were cut in, the blubber tried out, and the oil stowed away, together with three good heads of bone, making a fine beginning of what bade fair to be a very prosperous summer cruise. CHAPTER V WHEN THE ICE CAME IN