W. Bert Foster

“ Instantly the whole crew were in a pandemonium of excitement; but the captain’s shrill orders were obeyed like clockwork. I felt the blow of the great bark give a convulsive jerk. The whale had gone straight downward and the cable attached to the harpoon shot over the bow so fast that the eye could not follow its course. Where the hemp touched the rail a column of smoke arose. Two men sprang with buckets to dip up the sea-water and pour it upon the shrieking line. The windlass spun around like a boy’s top. ”

“ The captain, in the nearest boat, signaled us with his hand to strike on, while his boat rushed past for another of the sleeping monsters. Old Tom and the young second mate changed places swiftly and the old harpooner stood up poising the heavy iron and looking to see that the coils of the rope were free. With a nod Mr. Gibson ordered the oars brought inboard and he pulled in the long steering oar himself. The whaleboat shot close up to the whale’s side. The body loomed beside us like the rolling hull of an unballasted ship. ”

“ Otherwise it would not have been at the surface so long in such a gale. And being dead, and the seabirds and shark-fish having got at its carcass before the storm, there was good reason for the waves not breaking over it.
The dead whale lay in a slick, or “sleep,” as some old whalemen pronounce the word, and hope revived in my troubled mind the instant I realized what the object was, and its condition. The waves were following me as hungrily as ever; at any moment the sloop might be overwhelmed. But once let me get the Wavecrest in the lee of this dead whale, I could bid defiance to the storm. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To be adventuring about the world “on the loose” as old Tom Anderly called it, had seemed a mighty fine thing. But just at that moment, with the schooner shaking on the shoal, the fires flaring on the beach, and the savages dancing and yelling at us, I would have given a good deal to have been where I could call a policeman!
But Adoniram Tugg showed no particular fear. I was the only person who had a weapon on deck. The Yankee skipper did not even go down for his own gun that hung over his stateroom door. Instead, he turned to Pedro and gave a quick command. ”

“ The heavens above and to the north and east grew dark. The rising sun seemed snuffed out. A vivid glare which was neither sunlight nor starlight accompanied the tempest as it swept on.
I trembled at the sight and as the seconds passed I grew more terrified—and for good reason. What would happen to me if any of those whirling columns of water and mist 105struck the dead whale? If they burst upon the drifting mammal where would I be? What would happen to the Wavecrest?
And then quite suddenly there came a change in the on-rushing tornado. ”

“ Perhaps, however, it would not be known—it might never be suspected, indeed—that I had been swept out to sea in the sloop. The mere fact that I had left my tender tied to the mooring buoy might not be understood. Beside, the tender might have been cut adrift, too. Or the gale might have done much havoc in Bolderhead Inlet. Other craft could easily have been strewn along the rocky shores, or carried—like the Wavecrest—out into the open sea. ”

“ In a few seconds we would smash into the bark’s hull, whether the whale dived or not.
But the bull didn’t dive, and Tom swung the axe. His quick stroke severed the line and every man in our boat was awake to the impending catastrophe. Stroke sprang for the long steering oar. The rapid swing of it barely swerved the heavy boat out of the course of sure disaster. ”

“ For the Scarboro was built in the thirties of the last century; but so well did those old Yankee boat builders construct the barks meant for the fishing trade—for they were expected to stand many a tight squeeze in the ice as well as a possible head-on collision with a mad whale—that their length of life, and of usefulness, is phenomenal. At least, the Scarboro looked to be a most staunch and seaworthy craft. ”

“ Clint Webb need not be knocking about the world, looking for a chance to work his way home before the mast. As the canoe Tugg had lent me sailed south through the inlet, with Pedro and two gigantic Patagonians for crew, I milled these thoughts over in my mind, and determined that, once at home, I’d stick there. Not that I was tired of the sea, or afraid of work aboard ship; but I was deeply worried regarding my mother and what might be happening to her so far away. ”

“ I lost all other sound, with such enormous confusion the tornado swept upon me. The whale rolled as though it had come to sudden life again.
Over and over it canted. I know my sloop was lifted completely out of the sea. The 106waterspout whirled past—within three cable-lengths of the dead leviathan,—and the tempest shrieked after. The whale rolled back. I slid down the curve of the carcass and dropped into my plunging sloop. I feared to remain longer near the dead whale, but cast off both at bow and stern, and let the sea carry me some yards from the heaving, rolling carcass. ”

“ We could hear the muffled hammering of the carpenter and his mates inside her wounded hull. They were fighting to keep the old hooker above the seas. As we drifted away from the whaling bark I was not at all sure that we should ever see her above the seas again.
Our canvas filled and the sloop got a bone in her teeth and walked away with it just as prettily as ever she had sailed in Bolderhead Harbor.
“She’s a beauty boat, lad,” growled old Tom Anderly. “And she’s taking us out o’ range o’ them carcasses—Whew! they sartainly do begin to stink. ”

“ Up came a second wave. The lulling of the wind gave the waves a chance to gather force and height. This one curled fairly over my head and, looking up and over my shoulder at the great, green, foam-streaked wall of water, I thought my last minute above the surface had come!
It broke. I can remember nothing at all of the ensuing few moments. I only know that I was smothered, drowned, completely overwhelmed by the deluge of water that came inboard. The force of it burst open the slide of the hatch and barrels of water flooded into the cabin. The Wavecrest settled. ”

“ I never in my life saw such a fellow. Always blaming somebody else for the troubles he brought upon himself. I was soon tired of listening to him.
“Come! stow all that!” I advised him. “You’re a member of the Scarboro’s crew, and you joined of your own free will. The only reason I see for my trying to get you away from here is to have you arrested and punished for getting hold of my money at Buenos Ayres. I could put you in bad for that. You be thankful you are away down here on the Scarboro, instead of at Buenos Ayres.” ”

“ Wildly shrieking, the naked savages sprang overboard and swam back toward land, while we along the rail of the Sea Spell sent broadside after broadside of rockets after them.
We saw them splash through the shoal water, gain the land, and disappear beyond the illumination of the fires before all our skyrockets were used up.
“Avast firin’!” roared Captain Tugg, and Pedro, the mate, repeated the order in Spanish. “Now out with a boat, Pedro, and save those canoes. They’ll come in handy for our use.” ”

“ In the boiling wake of the whaleboat I could see a dozen triangular fins—the fins of the real tiger shark of the tropics. Not a nice spectacle to men in such a situation as ours. Secretly I was frightened, and I reckon even the oldest in the boat’s crew felt serious.
The mad whale was taking us farther and farther away from the bark and our friends. Indeed, the Scarboro was wiped out of sight, it seemed, within a very few minutes, and the other three boats were lost behind us, too. ”

“ I told myself that as long as there was a possibility that the mysterious Professor might be my lost father, I should take up with this offer of Captain Tugg. I might never be able to find this man of mystery if I did not sail on the Sea Spell when she slipped away from Buenos Ayres.
“It’s my chance!” I thought. “I can go home if there proves to be nothing in the venture. Why! I might take a steamship right at the Straits for some United States port. It’s my chance! I’ll do it.” ”

“ The Captain and Mr. Rudd had both got small whales and one had been laid aboard each side of the bark. The crew were working like gnomes in a pantomime when we rowed sadly to the bark with our huge tow. How we worked! I never had been so tired in my life, and at the end of the second day when the oil from the three whales had been run into the tanks and the decks cleared up again, I could have fallen into my hammock and slept the clock around. But one never catches up one’s sleep on a successful whaler, and the Scarboro certainly was proving good her name as a “lucky” craft. ”

“ Such paddling I never saw before, and it seemed to me we shot out of the inlet about as fast as though we were ironed to a bull whale!
But we were too late. The steamship had 244a long sea-mile on us and she wasn’t stopping for a canoe. We should have to trim our sail again and make for the West and Punta Arenas. As we swung the canoe’s head around, however, I caught sight of a big ship, with a wonderful lot of canvas set, passing the steamship and heading our way. She sailed the straits like a huge bird, her white canvas bellying from the deck to the extreme points of her wand-like topmasts. ”

“ But I turned to view the nearby mammoth again just as the gun spoke. I saw a hideous, crimson zigzag gash on the broad side of the whale, I heard the rumbling roar of the time-bomb at the point of the harpoon exploding in the whale’s vitals. ”

“ With rare good fortune the sloop needed little guidance to reach the dead whale. My original course had been aimed for the huge beast. As the Wavecrest gained upon it the monster was revealed, lying partly on its side, all of fifty feet from tail to nose. Of course there were no seabirds upon the carcass now, nor did I see the triangular fin of a shark anywhere about. They had ripped and torn at the carcass sufficiently, however, to release copiously the oil from the casing of blubber, or fat, with which the whale is entirely covered. ”

“ 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 bump.
We were on a short line, however, for the bull had not sounded deeply. Ben Gibson sprang up with the bomb gun and tried to put a lance in the beast at that distance. ”

“ Had it not been for mother and the fears I felt for her in the mesh of Chester Downes’ web, I should have welcomed this chance that had put me aboard the whaling bark Scarboro.
“And she’s a fine old craft,” declared the young second mate. “Maybe she’s a bit tender in her bends, but she’s sailed in every quarter of the globe and has brought home many a cargo of oil. We all own shares in her—in the bark herself, I mean—we Rogerses and Gibsons. ”

“ As the great Samuel Johnson declared, a sailor is worse off than a man in jail, for the sailor is not only a prisoner, but he is in danger all of the time! However, the prospect of the danger and hardship of the seafarer’s life had never troubled me. I must admit that I was delighted to turn to with the captain’s watch (that was Ben Gibson’s watch) and take up the duties of a foremast hand upon the Scarboro. I wrote the letters as I was advised. I wrote to my mother, of course, to Ham Mayberry, and last of all, and more particularly, to Lawyer Hounsditch. ”

“ I must confess that every day I was becoming more and more enamored of this life at sea. We had had little fair weather and were kept busy making sail and then reefing again, or repairing the small damages made by the gale. Captain Rogers was not the man to lay hove to in any fair breeze. We outran the bad weather before we crossed the line and then the lookout went to the masthead and from that time on, as long as I was with the Scarboro, the crowsnest was never empty by day. ”

“ At daybreak—another drab dawning of the new day—I was up and climbed the whale for the lantern. In its place I left attached to the upright oar a shirt to flutter in the wind for a signal. I hoped that any vessel passing near enough to see my signal would stop for me. But of one thing I was sure: If it chanced that a whaling ship came within sight of the dead leviathan my peril would soon be over. This huge beast had not been long dead and it would be all clear gain to any “blubber boiler” that chanced to pass that way. ”

“ I had been told by my mother, by Ham, and by other people as I grew up, that Dr. Webb had rowed out in a dory to fish off White Rock, a particularly good local fishing ground for blackfish. Some hours later a passing fishing party discovered the empty dory, bobbing up and down at the end of its kedge cable. The fishing lines were out. My father’s hat was in the boat, and his watch lay upon a seat as though he had taken it out and put it beside him so as not to forget when to row back to attend to his patients. ”

“ With a terrific splash of his tail, the fighting whale rolled over, after rebounding from the bark, and lay, seemingly stunned!
The bark, driven over almost on her beam ends, righted slowly. We knew the whale must be as good as dead, but we had no thought for him then. The smashing of the Scarboro might mean torture and death to every man of her crew. We were out of the track of general steamship routes, and far, far from land. If the bark sank, we were done for!
Chapter XXI
In Which the Wavecrest Sets Sail Again
Nobody gave any further thought to the whale. ”