"In that case a whisper would be equal to a howl!"

"You think I am joking, Willis; but on the tops of high mountains, such as the Himalaya and Mont Blanc, where the air is much rarified, voices are not heard at the distance of two paces."

"Awkward for deaf people!"

"Whilst, on the icy plains of the frozen regions, where the air is condensed by the severe cold, a conversation, held in the ordinary tone, may be easily carried on at the distance of half a league."

"Awkward for secrets!"

"And how does sound operate with regard to solid bodies?" inquired Jack.

"According to the degree of elasticity possessed by their veins or fibres."

"Explain yourself."

"That is, solid bodies, whose structure is such that the vibration communicated to some of their atoms circulates through the mass, are susceptible of conveying sound."

"Give us an instance."

"Apply your ear to one end of a long beam, and you will hear distinctly the stroke of a pin's head on the other; whilst the same stroke will scarcely be heard through the breadth of the wood."

"So that, in the first case, the sound runs along the longitudinal fibres where the contiguity of parts is closer, than when the body is taken transversely?"

"Just so."

"And across water?"

"It is heard, but more feebly."

For some time Fritz had been closely observing with the telescope a particular part of the horizon, when all at once he cried, "This time I see him distinctly; he is bearing down upon us."

"Who? the sloop?" cried Willis, starting up and letting fall the glass he had in his hand.

"What an extraordinary pace! he bounds into the air, then plumps into the water, then leaps up again, just like an India-rubber ball, that touches the ground only to take a fresh spring!"

"Impossible, Master Fritz; the _Nelson_ tops the waves honestly and gallantly; but as to leaping into the air, she is a little too bulky for that."

"Ah, poor Willis, it is not the _Nelson_ that is under my glass at present, but an enormous fish, ten or twelve feet in length."

"Oh, how you startled me!"

"Father! Ernest! prepare to fire! Jack, the harpoon! he is coming this way."

Fritz stood at the stern of the pinnace, his rifle levelled, following with his eyes the movements of the monster; when within reach, he fired with so much success and address that he hit the creature on the head. It then changed its course, leaving behind a train of blood.

"Let us after him, Willis; quick!"

The Pilot turned the head of the pinnace, and Jack immediately threw his harpoon.

"Struck!" cried he joyfully.

By the hissing of the line, and then the rapid impulsion of the pinnace, it was felt that the monster had more strength than the craft and its crew together.

Ernest and his father fired at the same time; the ball of the former was lost in the animal's flesh, that of the latter rebounded off a horny protuberance that armed the monster's upper lip.

Fritz had time to recharge his rifle; he levelled it a second time, and the ball went to join the former; but, for all that, the pinnace continued to cleave the water at a furious rate.

Becker seized an axe and cut the rope.

"Oh, father, what a pity! such a splendid capture for our museum of natural history!"

"It is a sword-fish, children; a monster of a dangerous species, and of extreme voracity. If, by way of reciprocity, the fish have a museum at the bottom of the sea, they will have some fine specimens of the human race that have become the prey of this creature; and it may be that we were on the way to join the collection."

"Did you observe the formidable dentilated horn?"

"It is by means of this horn or sword, from which it takes its name, that it wages a continual war with the whale, whose only mode of escape is by flourishing its enormous tail; but the sword-fish, being very agile, easily avoids this, bounds into the air as Fritz saw it doing just now, then, falling down upon its huge adversary, pierces him with its sword."

"By the way, talking about the whale," said Jack, "all naturalists seem agreed, and we ourselves are convinced from our own observation, that its throat is very narrow, and that it can only swallow molluscs, or very small fishes--what, in that case, becomes of the history of Jonah?"

"It is rather unfortunate," replied Becker, "that the whale has been associated with this miracle. There is now no possibility of separating the whale from Jonah, or Jonah from the whale; yet, in the Greek translation of the Chaldean text, there is _Ketos_--in the Latin, there is _Cete_--and both these words were understood by the ancients to signify a fish of enormous size, but not the whale in particular. The shark, for example, can swallow a man, and even a horse, without mangling it."

"I have heard," said Jack, "of navigators who have landed on the back of a whale, and walked about on it, supposing it a small island."

"There is nothing impossible about that," observed Willis.

"One thing is certain, that we had just now within reach a sea monster who has carried off four leaden bullets in his body without seeming to be in the least inconvenienced by them; on the contrary, he seemed to move all the quicker for the dose."

"Life is a very different thing with those fellows than with us. The carp is said to live two hundred years, and it is supposed that a whale might live for ten centuries if the harpoon did not come in the way to shorten the period."

"Ah!" exclaimed Willis, with a sigh that might have moved a train of waggons, "these fellows have no cares."

"And the ephemeride, that dies an instant after its birth, do you suppose that it dies of grief?"

"Who knows, Master Jack?"

"The ephemeride does not die so quickly as you think," said Becker; "it commences by living three years under water in the form of a maggot. It afterwards becomes amphibious, when it has a horny covering, on which the rudiments of wings may be observed. Then, four or five months after this first metamorphosis, generally in the month of August, it issues from its skin, almost as rapidly as we throw off a jacket; attached to the rejected skin are the teeth, lips, horns, and all the apparatus that the creature required as a water insect; then it is no sooner winged, gay, and beautiful, than, as you observe, it dies--hence it is called the day-fly, its existence being terminated by the shades of night."

"I was certain of it," said Willis.

"Certain of what?"

"That it died of grief at being on land. When one has been accustomed to the water, you see, under such circumstances life is not worth the having."

"The day-fly," continued Becker, "is an epitome of those men who spend a life-time hunting after wealth and glory, and who perish themselves at the moment they reach the pinnacle of their ambitious desires. Whence I conclude, my dear children, that there are nothing but beginnings and endings of unhappiness in this world, and that true felicity is only to be hoped for in another sphere."

"What a curious series of transformations! First an aquatic insect, next amphibious, then throwing away the organs for which it has no further use, and becoming provided with those suited to its new state!"

"Yes, my dear Fritz; and yet those complicated and beautiful operations of Nature have not prevented philosophers from asserting that the world resulted from _floating atoms_, which, by force of combination, and after an infinity of blind movements, conglomerate into plants, animals, men, heaven, and earth."