It began much as other busy days had begun for us of the Scarboro, since we got upon the whaling grounds; the fires under the trying-out kettles were scarcely quenched when, just at daybreak, came the hail of the man in the crowsnest:
"On deck, sir! Ah-h blows!"
"Where away?" bawled Captain Rogers, who seemed tireless himself and expected every man and boy aboard to catch the inspiration of a sight that had now become terribly commonplace to us--a spouting cachelot.
"Two p"ints on yer weather bow, sir."
The captain started up the rigging and in a moment the lookout repeated:
"Thar she blo-o-ows!"
"I see her!" bawled the captain. Then turning, his roar penetrated to the fo"castle: "All hands on deck! Tumble up here! Lively now! Sperm whale, ain"t she, John?"
"Aye, sir, sir!" returned the lookout. "There she breaches!" as one of the creatures up-ended. A dozen had suddenly come into sight--appearing like imps in a pantomime--"from the vasty deep."
As Captain Hi came down Mr. Robbins reached the quarter.
"Seems a powerful sight of whales, Mr. Robbins," the old man said, pa.s.sing the mate the gla.s.ses.
Mr. Robbins went up and took a good squint all around the horizon.
"Three hundred if there"s one, Cap"n!" he declared with reverent enthusiasm.
"Does seem so, doesn"t it?" admitted the captain.
The crew had tumbled up and were getting the boats ready. Only four were going out, but the skipper stayed us until we had had breakfast.
"We"re going into a man"s job this morning," he grunted. "We want to be prepared for it."
It might be that some of the boat crews wouldn"t be back at the ship for eighteen hours. It often happened, and pulling a heavy ash oar on an empty stomach is not an inspiring job.
Inside of five minutes after the first hail the whales spouting from one end of the skyline to the other. We had run into the biggest herd of sperms that the oldest whaleman on the Scarboro had ever seen. Maybe we didn"t feel excited! At such times as this one forgets the "grind."
There was both money and excitement ahead of us. We actually sloughed off the weariness we had felt after a steady twenty-four hours" spell at the try-out kettles.
We lowered and spread out, fanwise, from the bark and made for the whales. No need of racing this morning. As Tom said, it looked as though a harpoon thrown into the air in almost any direction would hit a whale when it came down!
I was eager to throw an iron myself. I had the physique for it, being such a stocky fellow. And the hard life I had lived since being swept out to sea in my Wavecrest had agreed with me. My muscles were like wire cables, I was burned as black as a negro, and there was scarcely a man aboard the bark whom I could not have flung in a fair wrestle.
"Give Clint his chance, Tom," said Mr. Gibson, as the boat-steerer came forward. "If he misses, you can throw a second iron."
I was tickled enough at this. Old Tom had given me plenty of advice before about the handling of the harpoon, and I tried to remember all of his teaching as I released my bow oar and took up the first iron.
Perhaps it would be interesting to my readers if I told them something about this weapon of the whaleman. The bomb-lance and gun are all very well; but the harpoon is the real weapon on which the whaleman must depend. This iron must be right and the line attached to it must be right, or the best of harpooners will make a poor tally.
The whale line is a fine manila rope 1-1/2 inches thick. It is stretched and coiled with the greatest care into tubs, some holding two hundred fathoms, some a hundred fathoms. The harpoons are fixed to poles of rough, heavy wood, every care being taken to make them as strong as possible. And their weight necessitates a harpooner being chosen from among the biggest and strongest men in the ship.
The harpoon blade is made like an arrow, but with only one barb, which turns on a steel pivot. The point of the harpoon blade is ground as sharp as a razor on one side and blunt on the other. The shaft is about thirty inches long and made of the best soft iron so that it is practically impossible to break it. Three irons were always placed in our boat, fitted one above the other in the starboard bow. If the harpooner missed with one iron, or if there was time to fling a second, he could reach and get it handily.
In the old days the lances were slung in the port bow. It was with the lance the whale was actually killed. The harpoon only serves to make the boat fast to its prize. The lances were slender spears about four feet long with broad points. The old-time whalemen were rowed right up to the side of the ironed monster, after it had tired itself out fighting, and the officer in the bow had to churn the lance up and down in the great beast until the point reached a vital spot.
For this reason there were many more serious accidents in the old times than now. In each boat belonging to the Scarboro there was stowed a lance-gun in place of the lances. The bomb-lance is surer than the old-time lance, and keeps the boat and crew farther from the seat of peril.
I rose up as soon as we drove in near the big bull that we had been approaching. And it _was_ a big fellow! I think it was as large a sperm as we had seen. Its upper jaw and head was covered with lumps and scars of old wounds. Along the flank was a half-healed, jagged gash, too.
"That old boy"s collided with something," grumbled Tom Anderly in my ear. "I believe he"s a rogue."
I had heard of ancient, isolated he-elephants being called "rogue;" but I did not know before that whalemen believe that certain old bull whales are just as savage and revengeful as tigers. Indeed, among all wild creatures--either on land or in the sea--there seem to be ancient bulls that go off from their kind and sulk. They easily "run amuck"--perhaps are really insane. To attack them is far more perilous than to attack a herd of their normal fellows.
This old bull whale, however, had not deserted the society of his fellows; but he proved to be as ugly a customer as we could have found in all that school of three hundred or more sperms!
"He looks bad to me," whispered Tom Anderly. "He"s a fighter. He"s probably smashed more boats in his time than the old hooker carries when she"s nested up full. Gosh! look at the warts on him."
"And that gash in his side," said Ben. "How do you suppose that happened?"
"Looks just like he"d rubbed against a copper keel," declared the old man.
I thought they were trying to scare me. But I learned later that it was not an uncommon thing for an old whale to use a ship"s keel to rub himself against--it sc.r.a.pes off the barnacles!
I just gave old Tom a grim look, however, and seized the harpoon. We were creeping up on the bull and I intended to make a good cast. The creature was weaving slowly along and not paying any attention to our boat at all. My! he did look enormous. The nearer we came to him the more threatening was his appearance. He was more than a hundred feet long, I was sure. He would have weighed as much as twenty-five of the biggest elephants that ever showed in a menagerie.
I am free to confess I felt _queer_, as that slate-colored monster loomed up before our bow. With one flop of its tail it could smash the craft and give us all a ducking--perhaps kill half the crew. Many of the old whalers" yarns I remembered as I poised that heavy shaft.
But then old Tom whispered: "_Now!_" I let go with all my might. The harpoon sunk into the huge bull until half its staff was hidden! I had made as pretty a cast as ever Tom Anderly could himself.
"Back all!" shouted Gibson.
Our craft shot backward while the bull gave a startled plunge forward, and the line began to run out fast. In half a minute the beast sounded and we prepared for a long fight. But suddenly he was up again and shot two or three geysers of water into the air. He lay still and we began to take in the slack.
"Call this a fight?" muttered the second mate, with scorn.
I had slipped into my seat and the mate was changing with Tom again, bent upon using the gun for the finishing touches. Suddenly the old bull started. He did not come for the boat but headed directly for the bark, lying not more than half a mile away. He went so fast we could scarcely see the harpoon line. He made the sea about him boil, and the waves in his wake (for we were close up to him) almost swamped us.
"What"s he going to do?" screamed Gibson.
"Holy mackerel!" groaned the stroke oarsman. "He"s going to bunt the old hooker."
"That"s what he"s up to," agreed Tom Anderly; "he"s after revenge. And if he hits the Scarboro _right_, we"re likely to have a nice time rowing ash.o.r.e, boys--you can take my word for that!"
CHAPTER XX
IN WHICH OUR CHAPTER OF BAD LUCK IS CONTINUED
That old bull was sure a fighting whale. The annals of whaling do not lack records of such old rogues, as witness the sinking of the Kathleen, of New Bedford on the "12-40 ground" east of the Barbadoes in 1901. A bad whale can do a lot of damage besides smashing whaleboats. Thus far we had suffered no loss from the monsters which the Scarboro was hunting; but as this old bull shot like an arrow for the scarred side of the bark, which was hove to less than half a mile away, it did look as though she was due to get a bad b.u.mp.
We were on a short line, however, for the bull had not sounded deeply.