Odyssey From Africa 13b

Ch. 13 b (The whale, cont.) Now the sardine hunt developed  As they glimpsed beneath the surface  Flashing rays of gold and silver Of the dolphins and the swordfish    That converged with blue-fin tuna To the swarming sardine banquet  Then not fifty paces distant Rising from the ocean darkness    Open mouthed, a humpback surfaced Gulping a colossal volume  Of the sardine-teeming water Then to shrouded deep returning   Lisa and her brother Matto Cried aloud with joy and wonder Looking all around their vessel  For another rising titan   Till their boat was jolted sharply  Flinging hard against the gunwales  Han and both the children as their Craft was lifted from the water   As a whale's emerging forehead  Raised them up and tipped them over Pitching out into the ocean Fisherman and son and daughter    And their boat, its hull inverted  Settled down into the sea foam Han and Lisa swam together To the boat and hold its timbers   Which they clung to as they waited Rescue from the shipwright’s vessel  Matto had been flung out further  And they watched him swim toward them   Struggling through the foam-flecked sea swells As the boat of Tor came nearer But a much more grave disaster  Was about to come upon them   As beneath the swimming boy there Formed a swift upwelling darkness And before the shocked onlookers  Breached a widely gaping humpback    With its jaws surrounding Matto As the monstrous throat of baleen Swallowed up the sea around him And he sank into the maelstrom    So the humpback swallowed Matto! Then it languidly subsided As a disappearing shadow  Taking down a son and brother    Down into an endless darkness  Lisa screamed in grief and horror Han just struggled to control her Keep her head above the water As his heart was crushed with sorrow  Now the wave made by the humpback  Turned their capsized boat back upright  And the shipwright Tor now reached them With his sons he lifted Lisa And her father from the water They embraced in silent sorrow  In the boat for several moments  Somewhere in his anguished memory  Han remembered from his childhood  An account his father told him Of a sailor who had also  Been in likewise manner swallowed By a whale, but had not perished Breathing from a gastric bubble In the whale's enormous stomach  Then had been regurgitated  Back into the ocean water Han, in bleakest desperation  Now made up his mind to follow