A mighty gray-black head, entangled in a clinging web of wire, rears from out the water. Up, up, it goes till a huge bulk of body towers a good fifty feet in the air, its side fins thrashing wildly in a smother of foam. It curves in an arch and then, like an arrow, down go whale and net together for the “sound.” Not for long, though. The upward drag of the bunched net-floats, and its necessity for breath, bring the “fish” quickly to the surface—a spouting, snorting, wallowing mass; mad with rage, wild with terror of the unknown, clinging horror that envelopes it. Bang! bang! go the guns from each boat, in quick succession. Both irons are home and well placed. A wild quiver of flukes and fins, and the whale either “sounds” again or “races” along the surface, towing the boats after it at express speed. But the net holds fast, and at each new effort for freedom the victim becomes more hopelessly “wound up” than before. Soon, exhausted with futile struggling, the whale comes to rest, and there is a momentary cessation of the mad fight as the leviathan pauses for breath. Huge, panting air-gasps are plainly audible aboard our launch at a distance of half a mile. The crews are quick to seize the opportunity. With the lance-men ready in the bow, the boats sweep in, one on either side. “Steady with the lance.” “Now!” Eight-foot steel blades drive deep for the heart behind the pectoral fins. A shiver, a hissing spout of water and blood, a wallow and roll of the huge, wire-tangled carcass, flashes of red and white foam in the sunlight, and the black heave of a twenty-foot fin that for one dread instant, scimitar-shaped, a falling wall of bone and sinew, hangs over the boat and its occupants. The boat’s crew back out like lightning, just in time. Down crashes the mighty flail, missing its blow by a barefoot. There is a roar and clap of many thunders, and jetting spurts of spray leap high into the blue. The boats, backed clear, still hang to the lines, the crews watching events and waiting the end. It may be that the dying whale will “sound” again, or “race” in a final effort. But, no. The lances have gone home. A few more wallows’ of despair, the great tail-flukes thrash the water with lessening force, and presently the huge body, inert, lifeless, lies quietly on the surface. Hawsers are made fast to the dead whale, and while the boats return to their stations to watch the remaining nets it is towed by the launch to the flensing jetty ashore.[1] Footnote 1: D. W. O. Fagan in the _Wide World Magazine_, pp. 423–432.