So engrossed was he in searching the coast. . .that for a long while he
did not notice the great fin that had risen to starboard, and began to
parallel their course at a distance neither great nor small, cunning
with the patience of a predator. It was not until it turned and began
to bore in on them, as the girl caught her breath and froze in terror,
that he saw it.
But once seen there was no forgetting. Black and straight as an ebon
keel, it cut through the swells with effortless grace, a torpedoing,
half-defined shadow beneath it. No small, Child-bearing female this,
but a magnificent bull fully thirty feet long, its knifing dorsal as
tall as a man.
And then the blackened knife, like a periscope, sank beneath the level
of the waves, and did not reappear. Kalus unfastened his spear, moved
forward and stood up in the bow---awed, but fiercely determined to
defend his own. All was quiet and still.
Then suddenly (or so it seemed, for the motion was not performed in
haste) a great head appeared in front of them, rising perpendicular out
of the water, lightly touched by the lapping swells. Above patches of
white, dark eyes studied them darkly. The orca seemed to be asking
himself, almost casually, were they worth the trouble? Aboard the
suddenly diminished craft, the cub set loose a peal of frightened
barking, while Kalus showed the whale clearly the point of his spear.
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