ope of a wave would show where some very big fish was taking
toll of the pinky swarms. The whale kept her eye on these ponderous
swirls with a certain amount of suspicion, though not really
anticipating any danger here.

"She was just about coming to the conclusion that one can have enough,
even of shrimps, when, glancing downwards, she caught sight of a long,
slender, deadly-looking shape slanting up toward her through a space of
clear water between the armies of the shrimps. She knew that grim
shape all too well, and it was darting straight at her baby, its
terrible sword standing out keen and straight from its pointed snout.

"In spite of her immense bulk and apparently clumsy form, the whale was
capable of marvelously quick action. You see, except for her head she
was all one bundle of muscle. Swift as thought, she whipped herself
clear round, between her calf and the upward rush of the swordfish.
She was just in time. The thrust that would have gone clean through
the calf, splitting its heart in two, went deep into her own side.

"Withdrawing his terrible weapon, the robber fish whirled about like
lightning and made a second dash at the coveted prize. But the mother,
holding the little one tight under her flipper, wheeled again in time
to intercept the attack, and again received the dreadful thrust in her
own flank. So swift was the swordfish (he was a kind of giant
mackerel, with all the mackerel's grace and fire and nimbleness) that
he seemed to be everywhere at once. The whale was kept spinning around
in a dizzy circle of foam, like a whirlpool, with the bewildered calf
on the inside. The mighty twisting thrusts of her tail, with its
flukes twenty feet wide, set the whole surface boiling for hundreds of
yards about.

"At last, grown suddenly frantic with rage, with terror for her little
one, and with the pain of her wounds, the tormented mother broke into a
deep booming bellow, as of a hundred bulls. The mysterious sound sent
all the gulls screaming into the air, and frightened the basking
walruses on the ledges three miles away. Every seal that heard it
shuddered and dived, and an old white bear, prowling along the desolate
beach in search of dead fish, lifted his lean head and listened
nervously.

"Only the swordfish paid no attention to that tremendous and desperate
cry. In the midst of it he made another rush, missed the calf by a
handbreadth, and buried his sword to the socket in the mother