Tales of Natural and Unnatural Catastrophes Read Online Free PDF Page B

both hands and set his teeth. What if the whale took him on a great voyage to the edge of the earth and down? What if the whale turned and swallowed him? The boy’s boat moved, and he pitched forward, then got to his knees. His boat moved ever faster, first to one side then the other. Then suddenly the resistance was gone, and the boy fell backward, bare feet in the air for a moment. The rope hung limp in his hands, and he panted, scared, relieved and puzzled. He looked around but saw no whale, only a whirlpool in the sea nearby, where the whale had dived. He pulled the limp rope in hand over hand, and there was his prize—the beautiful lance!
    The lance was even a little longer than his boat! It had an arrow-like tip, sharp and strong. At the other end, a metal ring, an integral part of the lance, served to hold the rope which was securely tied to it. The wreck of a half-boat floated near. The boy’s parted lips began to smile. There was nothing to fear now. The lance was his, his weapon now. The half-boat, which his people had thought was magical, was nothing but part of a wreck. The whale had swum off. Or had it?
    The boy gazed carefully around in a circle once, and then again. The waters looked calm. He took up his paddle, reached for the rope that lay over his boat’s side, and gave the wreck a tug. There were valuable metal pieces on the wreck, he had noticed. He would burn these off and keep them.
    On the beach of the island, the boy was erect and silent, like a chief of the old days. A crowd of his people had been waiting for him, had swum out to pull his boat and the wreck on to the shore. The boy answered their excited questions calmly and briefly, like a man. He carried the lance straight up beside him, and would not let anyone touch it at first, then he did—smiling proudly as older men ran their thumbs along its tapered edge. The girl he liked was watching from a distance. She did not take her eyes from him, but when he had set out on the desperate voyage to the wreck, she had said she did not want him. Now things would be different. The whole world was different for the boy.
    It had occurred to the boy to say that he had killed the whale in whose body the lance had been fastened, but he decided against this. He simply told of a whale that had been pulling the half-boat, the biggest whale he had ever seen or heard of, as long as their island. He had managed to seize the end of the lance, he said, as the whale swam by, and had tugged it from the whale’s flesh. This everyone believed. Everyone went and touched the wreck, as if to assure himself that it held no magic powers. Men lifted and let fall the metal ring that held the rope, listening to its clink against the metal in the wreck’s side.
    The boy was even haughty for a while toward the girl he liked, pretending not to see her, though she was the main thing on his mind. He said that the whale was not only huge but stuck all over with lances and harpoons like a big pig stuck with spices for roasting. The whale was so big, no weapon would ever penetrate to its vital organs. Thus the boy enhanced his courage.
    That still left the whale, and the story of the impregnable monster became known in the islands, and lookouts were sharper on the little fishing boats, the idea being to avoid the beast. The story reached the ears of professional whalers, who with their harpoon guns were not afraid, and who reckoned that, even if the whale were not so large as reported, it would still be worth capturing. One of these whalers pursued the whale one day, and the whale eluded the ship by diving under and behind one of the long tankers that was moving on an undeviating course.
    The whale was heading north into seas that were cooler now and would become still cooler. Enough of the islands! He had a few more bone-tipped lances in him since he had shed the boat fragment. A lance near his left eye annoyed him, especially when he swam past vegetation that the lance touched. He