Title: Fighting the Whales
Author: Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael), 1825-1894
Language: English
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FIGHTING THE WHALES, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.



CHAPTER ONE.

IN TROUBLE, TO BEGIN WITH.

There are few things in this world that have filled me with so much
astonishment as the fact that man can kill a whale!  That a fish, more
than sixty feet long, and thirty feet round the body; with the bulk of
three hundred fat oxen rolled into one; with the strength of many
hundreds of horses; able to swim at a rate that would carry it right
round the world in twenty-three days; that can smash a boat to atoms
with one slap of its tail, and stave in the planks of a ship with one
blow of its thick skull;--that such a monster can be caught and killed
by man, is most wonderful to hear of, but I can tell from experience
that it is much more wonderful to see.

There is a wise saying which I have often thought much upon.  It is
this: "Knowledge is power."  Man is but a feeble creature, and if he had
to depend on his own bodily strength alone, he could make no head
against even the ordinary brutes in this world.  But the knowledge which
has been given to him by his Maker has clothed man with great power, so
that he is more than a match for the fiercest beast in the forest, or
the largest fish in the sea.  Yet, with all his knowledge, with all his
experience, and all his power, the killing of a great old sperm whale
costs man a long, tough battle, sometimes it even costs him his life.

It is a long time now since I took to fighting the whales.  I have been
at it, man and boy, for nigh forty years, and many a wonderful sight
have I seen; many a desperate battle have I fought in the fisheries of
the North and South Seas.

Sometimes, when I sit in the chimney-corner of a winter evening, smoking
my pipe with my old messmate Tom Lokins, I stare into the fire, and
think of the days gone by, till I forget where I am, and go on thinking
so hard that the flames seem to turn into melting fires, and the bars of
the grate into dead fish, and the smoke into sails and rigging, and I go
to work cutting up the blubber and stirring the oil-pots, or pulling the
bow-oar and driving the harpoon at such a rate that I can't help giving
a shout, which causes Tom to start and cry:--

"Hallo!  Bob," (my name is Bob Ledbury, you see).  "Hallo!  Bob, wot's
the matter?"

To which I reply, "Tom, can it all be true?"

"Can _wot_ be true?" says he, with a stare of surprise--for Tom is
getting into his dotage now.

And then I chuckle and tell him I was only thinking of old times, and so
he falls to smoking again, and I to staring at the fire, and thinking as
hard as ever.

The way in which I was first led to go after the whales was curious.
This is how it happened.

About forty years ago, when I was a boy of nearly fifteen years of age,
I lived with my mother in one of the seaport towns of England.  There
was great distress in the town at that time, and many of the hands were
out of work.  My employer, a blacksmith, had just died, and for more
than six weeks I had not been able to get employment or to earn a
farthing.  This caused me great distress, for my father had died without
leaving a penny in the world, and my mother depended on me entirely.
The money I had saved out of my wages was soon spent, and one morning
when I sat down to breakfast, my mother looked across the table and
said, in a thoughtful voice--

"Robert, dear, this meal has cost us our last halfpenny."

My mother was old and frail, and her voice very gentle; she was the most
trustful, uncomplaining woman I ever knew.

I looked up quickly into her face as she spoke.  "All the money gone,
mother?"

"Ay, all.  It will be hard for you to go without your dinner, Robert,
dear."

"It will be harder for you, mother," I cried, striking the table with my
fist; then a lump rose in my throat and almost choked me.  I could not
utter another word.

It was with difficulty I managed to eat the little food that was before
me.  After breakfast I rose hastily and rushed out of the house,
determined that I would get my mother her dinner, even if I should have
to beg for it.  But I must confess that a sick feeling came over me when
I thought of begging.

Hurrying along the crowded streets without knowing very well what I
meant to do, I at last came to an abrupt halt at the end of the pier.
Here I went up to several people and offered my services in a wild sort
of way.  They must have thought that I was drunk, for nearly all of them
said gruffly that they did not want me.

Dinner time drew near, but no one had given me a job, and no wonder, for
the way in which I tried to get one was not likely to be successful.  At
last I resolved to beg.  Observing a fat, red-faced old gentleman coming
along the pier, I made up to him boldly.  He carried a cane with a large
gold knob on the top of it.  That gave me hope, "for of course," thought
I, "he must be rich."  His nose, which was exactly the colour and shape
of the gold knob on his cane, was stuck in the centre of a round,
good-natured countenance, the mouth of which was large and firm; the
eyes bright and blue.  He frowned as I went forward hat in hand; but I
was not to be driven back; the thought of my starving mother gave me
power to crush down my rising shame.  Yet I had no reason to be ashamed.
I was willing to work, if only I could have got employment.

Stopping in front of the old gentleman, I was about to speak when I
observed him quietly button up his breeches pocket.  The blood rushed to
my face, and, turning quickly on my heel, I walked away without uttering
a word.

"Hallo!" shouted a gruff voice just as I was moving away.

I turned and observed that the shout was uttered by a broad
rough-looking jack-tar, a man of about two or three and thirty, who had
been sitting all the forenoon on an old cask smoking his pipe and
basking in the sun.

"Hallo!" said he again.

"Well," said I.

"Wot d'ye mean, youngster, by goin' on in that there fashion all the
mornin', a-botherin' everybody, and makin' a fool o' yourself like that?
eh!"

"What's that to you?" said I savagely, for my heart was sore and heavy,
and I could not stand the interference of a stranger.

"Oh! it's nothin' to me of course," said the sailor, picking his pipe
quietly with his clasp-knife; "but come here, boy, I've somethin' to say
to ye."

"Well, what is it?" said I, going up to him somewhat sulkily.

The man looked at me gravely through the smoke of his pipe, and said,
"You're in a passion, my young buck, that's all; and, in case you didn't
know it, I thought I'd tell ye."

I burst into a fit of laughter.  "Well, I believe you're not far wrong,
but I'm better now."

"Ah, that's right," said the sailor, with an approving nod of his head,
"always confess when you're in the wrong.  Now, younker, let me give you
a bit of advice.  Never get into a passion if you can help it, and if
you can't help it get out of it as fast as possible, and if you can't
get out of it, just give a great roar to let off the steam and turn
about and run.  There's nothing like that.  Passion han't got legs.  It
can't hold on to a feller when he's runnin'.  If you keep it up till you
a'most split your timbers, passion has no chance.  It _must_ go a-starn.
Now, lad, I've been watchin' ye all the mornin', and I see there's a
screw loose somewhere.  If you'll tell me wot it is, see if I don't help
you!"

The kind frank way in which this was said quite won my heart, so I sat
down on the old cask, and told the sailor all my sorrows.

"Boy," said he, when I had finished, "I'll put you in the way o' helpin'
your mother.  I can get you a berth in my ship, if you're willin' to
take a trip to the whale-fishery of the South Seas."

"And who will look after my mother when I'm away?" said I.

The sailor looked perplexed at the question.

"Ah, that's a puzzler," he replied, knocking the ashes out of his pipe.
"Will you take me to your mother's house, lad?"

"Willingly," said I, and, jumping up, I led the way.  As we turned to
go, I observed that the old gentleman with the gold-headed cane was
leaning over the rail of the pier at a short distance from us.  A
feeling of anger instantly rose within me, and I exclaimed, loud enough
for him to hear--

"I do believe that stingy old chap has been listening to every word
we've been saying!"

I thought I observed a frown on the sailor's brow as I said this, but he
made no remark, and in a few minutes we were walking rapidly through the
streets.  My companion stopped at one of those stores so common in
seaport towns, where one can buy almost anything, from a tallow candle
to a brass cannon.  Here he purchased a pound of tea, a pound of sugar,
a pound of butter, and a small loaf,--all of which he thrust into the
huge pockets of his coat.  He had evidently no idea of proportion or of
household affairs.  It was a simple, easy way of settling the matter, to
get a pound of everything.

In a short time we reached our house, a very old one, in a poor
neighbourhood, and entered my mother's room.  She was sitting at the
table when we went in, with a large Bible before her, and a pair of
horn-spectacles on her nose.  I could see that she had been out
gathering coals and cinders during my absence, for a good fire burned in
the grate, and the kettle was singing cheerily thereon.

"I've brought a friend to see you, mother," said I.

"Good-day, mistress," said the sailor bluntly, sitting down on a stool
near the fire.  "You seem to be goin' to have your tea."

"I expect to have it soon," replied my mother.

"Indeed!" said I, in surprise.  "Have you anything in the kettle?"

"Nothing but water, my son."

"Has anybody brought you anything, then, since I went out?"

"Nobody."

"Why, then, mistress," broke in the seaman, "how can you expect to have
your tea so soon?"

My mother took off her spectacles, looked calmly in the man's face, laid
her hand on the Bible, and said, "Because I have been a widow woman
these three years, and never once in all that time have I gone a single
day without a meal.  When the usual hour came I put on my kettle to
boil, for this Word tells me that `the Lord will provide.'  I _expect_
my tea to-night."

The sailor's face expressed puzzled astonishment at these words, and he
continued to regard my mother with a look of wonder as he drew forth his
supplies of food, and laid them on the table.

In a short time we were all enjoying a cup of tea, and talking about the
whale-fishery, and the difficulty of my going away while my mother was
dependent on me.  At last the sailor rose to leave us.  Taking a
five-pound note from his pocket, he laid it on the table and said--

"Mistress, this is all I have in the world, but I've got neither family
nor friends, and I'm bound for the South Seas in six days; so, if you'll
take it, you're welcome to it, and if your son Bob can manage to cast
loose from you without leaving you to sink, I'll take him aboard the
ship that I sail in.  He'll always find me at the Bull and Griffin, in
the High Street, or at the end o' the pier."

While the sailor was speaking, I observed a figure standing in a dark
corner of the room near the door, and, on looking more closely, I found
that it was the old gentleman with the nose like his cane-knob.  Seeing
that he was observed, he came forward and said--

"I trust that you will forgive my coming here without invitation; but I
happened to overhear part of the conversation between your son and this
seaman, and I am willing to help you over your little difficulty, if you
will allow me."

The old gentleman said this in a very quick, abrupt way, and looked as
if he were afraid his offer might be refused.  He was much heated, with
climbing our long stair no doubt, and as he stood in the middle of the
room, puffing and wiping his bald head with a handkerchief, my mother
rose hastily and offered him a chair.

"You are very kind, sir," she said; "do sit down, sir.  I'm sure I don't
know why you should take so much trouble.  But, dear me, you are very
warm; will you take a cup of tea to cool you?"

"Thank you, thank you.  With much pleasure, unless, indeed, your son
objects to a `_stingy old chap_' sitting beside him."

I blushed when he repeated my words, and attempted to make some apology;
but the old gentleman stopped me by commencing to explain his intentions
in short, rapid sentences.

To make a long story short, he offered to look after my mother while I
was away, and, to prove his sincerity, laid down five shillings, and
said he would call with that sum every week as long as I was absent.  My
mother, after some trouble, agreed to let me go, and, before that
evening closed, everything was arranged, and the gentleman, leaving his
address, went away.

The sailor had been so much filled with surprise at the suddenness of
all this, that he could scarcely speak.  Immediately after the departure
of the old gentleman, he said, "Well, good-bye, mistress, good-bye,
Bob," and throwing on his hat in a careless way, left the room.

"Stop," I shouted after him, when he had got about half-way down stair.

"Hallo! wot's wrong now?"

"Nothing, I only forgot to ask your name."

"Tom Lokins," he bellowed, in the hoarse voice of a regular boatswain,
"w'ich wos my father's name before me."

So saying, he departed, whistling "Rule Britannia" with all his might.

Thus the matter was settled.  Six days afterwards, I rigged myself out
in a blue jacket, white ducks, and a straw hat, and went to sea.



CHAPTER TWO.

AT SEA.

My first few days on the ocean were so miserable that I oftentimes
repented of having left my native land.  I was, as my new friend Tom
Lokins said, as sick as a dog.  But in course of time I grew well, and
began to rejoice in the cool fresh breezes and the great rolling billows
of the sea.

Many and many a time I used to creep out to the end of the bowsprit,
when the weather was calm, and sit with my legs dangling over the deep
blue water, and my eyes fixed on the great masses of rolling clouds in
the sky, thinking of the new course of life I had just begun.  At such
times the thought of my mother was sure to come into my mind, and I
thought of her parting words, "Put your trust in the Lord, Robert, and
read His Word."  I resolved to try to obey her, but this I found was no
easy matter, for the sailors were a rough lot of fellows, who cared
little for the Bible.  But, I must say, they were a hearty, good-natured
set, and much better, upon the whole, than many a ship's crew that I
afterwards sailed with.

We were fortunate in having fair winds this voyage, and soon found
ourselves on the other side of the _line_, as we jack-tars call the
Equator.

Of course the crew did not forget the old custom of shaving all the men
who had never crossed the line before.  Our captain was a jolly old man,
and uncommonly fond of "sky-larking."  He gave us leave to do what we
liked the day we crossed the line; so, as there were a number of wild
spirits among us, we broke through all the ordinary rules, or, rather,
we added on new rules to them.

The old hands had kept the matter quiet from us greenhorns, so that,
although we knew they were going to do some sort of mischief, we didn't
exactly understand what it was to be.

About noon of that day I was called on deck and told that old father
Neptune was coming aboard, and we were to be ready to receive him.  A
minute after, I saw a tremendous monster come up over the side of the
ship and jump on the deck.  He was crowned with sea-weed, and painted in
a wonderful fashion; his clothes were dripping wet, as if he had just
come from the bottom of the sea.  After him came another monster with a
petticoat made of sailcloth, and a tippet of a bit of old tarpaulin.
This was Neptune's wife, and these two carried on the most remarkable
antics I ever saw.  I laughed heartily, and soon discovered, from the
tones of their voices, which of my shipmates Neptune and his wife were.
But my mirth was quickly stopped when I was suddenly seized by several
men, and my face was covered over with a horrible mixture of tar and
grease!

Six of us youngsters were treated in this way; then the lather was
scraped off with a piece of old hoop-iron, and, after being thus shaved,
buckets of cold water were thrown over us.

At last, after a prosperous voyage, we arrived at our fishing-ground in
the South Seas, and a feeling of excitement and expectation began to
show itself among the men, insomuch that our very eyes seemed brighter
than usual.

One night those of us who had just been relieved from watch on deck,
were sitting on the lockers down below telling ghost stories.

It was a dead calm, and one of those intensely dark, hot nights, that
cause sailors to feel uneasy, they scarce know why.  I began to feel so
uncomfortable at last, listening to the horrible tales which Tom Lokins
was relating to the men, that I slipt away from them with the intention
of going on deck.  I moved so quietly that no one observed me; besides,
every eye was fixed earnestly on Tom, whose deep low voice was the only
sound that broke the stillness of all around.  As I was going very
cautiously up the ladder leading to the deck, Tom had reached that part
of his story where the ghost was just appearing in a dark churchyard,
dressed in white, and coming slowly forward, one step at a time, towards
the terrified man who saw it.  The men held their breath, and one or two
of their faces turned pale as Tom went on with his description, lowering
his voice to a hoarse whisper.  Just as I put my head up the hatchway
the sheet of one of the sails, which was hanging loose in the still air,
passed gently over my head and knocked my hat off.  At any other time I
would have thought nothing of this, but Tom's story had thrown me into
such an excited and nervous condition that I gave a start, missed my
footing, uttered a loud cry, and fell down the ladder right in among the
men with a tremendous crash, knocking over two or three oil-cans and a
tin bread-basket in my fall, and upsetting the lantern, so that the
place was instantly pitch dark.

I never heard such a howl of terror as these men gave vent to when this
misfortune befell me.  They rushed upon deck with their hearts in their
mouths, tumbling, and peeling the skin off their shins and knuckles in
their haste; and it was not until they heard the laughter of the watch
on deck that they breathed freely, and, joining in the laugh, called
themselves fools for being frightened by a ghost story.  I noticed,
however, that, for all their pretended indifference, there was not one
man among them--not even Tom Lokins himself--who would go down below to
relight the lantern for at least a quarter of an hour afterwards!

Feeling none the worse for my fall, I went forward and leaned over the
bow of the ship, where I was much astonished by the appearance of the
sea.  It seemed as if the water was on fire.  Every time the ship's bow
rose and fell, the little belt of foam made in the water seemed like a
belt of blue flame with bright sparkles in it, like stars or diamonds.
I had seen this curious appearance before, but never so bright as it was
on that night.

"What is it, Tom?" said I, as my friend came forward and leaned over the
ship's bulwark beside me.

"It's blue fire, Bob," replied Tom, as he smoked his pipe calmly.

"Come, you know I can't swallow that," said I; "everybody knows that
fire, either blue or red, can't burn in the water."

"Maybe not," returned Tom; "but it's blue fire for all that.  Leastwise
if it's not, I don't know wot else it is."

Tom had often seen this light before, no doubt, but he had never given
himself the trouble to find out what it could be.  Fortunately the
captain came up just as I put the question, and he enlightened me on the
subject.

"It is caused by small animals," said he, leaning over the side.

"Small animals!" said I, in astonishment.

"Ay, many parts of the sea are full of creatures so small and so thin
and colourless, that you can hardly see them even in a clear glass
tumbler.  Many of them are larger than others, but the most of them are
very small."

"But how do they shine like that, sir?"  I asked.

"That I do not know, boy.  God has given them the power to shine, just
as he has given us the power to walk or speak; and they do shine
brightly, as you see; but _how_ they do it is more than I can tell.  I
think, myself, it must be anger that makes them shine, for they
generally do it when they are stirred up or knocked about by oars, or
ships' keels, or tumbling waves.  But I am not sure that that's the
reason either, because, you know, we often sail through them without
seeing the light, though of course they must be there."

"P'raps, sir," said Tom Lokins; "p'raps, sir, they're sleepy sometimes,
an' can't be bothered gettin' angry."

"Perhaps!" answered the captain, laughing.  "But then again, at other
times, I have seen them shining over the whole sea when it was quite
calm, making it like an ocean of milk; and nothing was disturbing them
at that time, d'ye see."

"I don' know _that_," objected Tom; "they might have bin a-fightin'
among theirselves."

"Or playing, may be," said I.

The captain laughed, and, looking up at the sky, said, "I don't like the
look of the weather, Tom Lokins.  You're a sharp fellow, and have been
in these seas before, what say you?"

"We'll have a breeze," replied Tom, briefly.

"More than a breeze," muttered the captain, while a look of grave
anxiety overspread his countenance; "I'll go below and take a squint at
the glass."

"What does he mean by that, Tom," said I, when the captain was gone, "I
never saw a calmer or a finer night.  Surely there is no chance of a
storm just now."

"Ay, that shows that you're a young feller, and han't got much
experience o' them seas," replied my companion.  "Why, boy, sometimes
the fiercest storm is brewin' behind the greatest calm.  An' the worst
o' the thing is that it comes so sudden at times, that the masts are
torn out o' the ship before you can say Jack Robinson."

"What! and without any warning?" said I.

"Ay, _almost_ without warnin'; but not _altogether_ without it.  You
heer'd the captain say he'd go an' take a squint at the glass?"

"Yes; what is the glass?"

"It's not a glass o' grog, you may be sure; nor yet a lookin'-glass.
It's the weather-glass, boy.  Shore-goin' chaps call it a barometer."

"And what's the meaning of barometer?"  I inquired earnestly.

Tom Lokins stared at me in stupid amazement.

"Why, boy," said he, "you're too inquisitive.  I once asked the doctor
o' a ship that question, and says he to me, `Tom,' says he, `a barometer
is a glass tube filled with quicksilver or mercury, which is a metal in
a soft or fluid state, like water, you know, and it's meant for tellin'
the state o' the weather.'

"`Yes, sir,' I answers, `I know that, well enough.'

"`Then why did you ask?' says he, gettin' into a passion.

"`I asked what was the meanin' o' the _word_ barometer, sir,' said I.

"The doctor he looked grave at that, and shook his head.  `Tom,' says
he, `if I was to go for to explain that word, and all about the
instrument, in a scientific sort o' way, d'ye see, I'd have to sit here
an' speak to you right on end for six hours or more.'

"`Oh, sir,' says I, `don't do it, then.  _Please_, don't do it.'

"`No more I will,' says he; `but it'll serve your turn to know that a
barometer is a glass for measurin' the weight o' the air, and, _somehow
or other, that_ lets ye know wots a-coming.  If the mercury in the glass
rises high, all's right.  If it falls uncommon low very sudden, look out
for squalls; that's all.  No matter how smooth the sea may be, or how
sweetly all natur' may smile, don't you believe it; take in every inch
o' canvas at once.'"

"That was a queer explanation, Tom."

"Ay, but it was a true one, as you shall see before long."

As I looked out upon the calm sea, which lay like a sheet of glass,
without a ripple on its surface, I could scarcely believe what he had
said.  But before many minutes had passed I was convinced of my error.

While I was standing talking to my messmate, the captain rushed on deck,
and shouted--

"All hands tumble up!  Shorten sail!  Take in every rag!  Look alive,
boys, look alive."

I was quite stunned for a moment by this, and by the sudden tumult that
followed.  The men, who seemed never to take thought about anything, and
who had but one duty, namely, to _obey orders_, ran upon deck, and
leaped up the rigging like cats; the sheets of nearly all the principal
sails were clewed up, and, ere long, the canvas was made fast to the
yards.  A few of the smaller sails only were left exposed, and even
these were close reefed.  Before long a loud roar was heard, and in
another minute the storm burst upon us with terrific violence.  The ship
at first lay over so much that the masts were almost in the water, and
it was as impossible for any one to walk the deck as to walk along the
side of a wall.  At the same time, the sea was lashed into white foam,
and the blinding spray flew over us in bitter fury.

"Take in the topsails!" roared the captain.  But his voice was drowned
in the shriek of the gale.  The men were saved the risk of going out on
the yards, however, for in a few moments more all the sails, except the
storm-try-sail, were burst and blown to ribbons.

We now tried to put the ship's head to the wind and "_lay to_," by which
landsmen will understand that we tried to face the storm, and remain
stationary.  But the gale was so fierce that this was impossible.  The
last rag of sail was blown away, and then there was nothing left for us
but to show our stern to the gale, and "scud under bare poles."

The great danger now was that we might be "pooped," which means that a
huge wave might curl over our stern, fall with terrible fury on our
deck, and sink us.

Many and many a good ship has gone down in this way; but we were
mercifully spared.  As our safety depended very much on good steering,
the captain himself took the wheel, and managed the ship so well, that
we weathered the gale without damage, farther than the loss of a few
sails and light spars.  For two days the storm howled furiously, the sky
and sea were like ink, with sheets of rain and foam driving through the
air, and raging billows tossing our ship about like a cork.

During all this time my shipmates were quiet and grave, but active and
full of energy, so that every order was at once obeyed without noise or
confusion.  Every man watched the slightest motion of the captain.  We
all felt that everything depended on him.

As for me, I gave up all hope of being saved.  It seemed impossible to
me that anything that man could build could withstand so terrible a
storm.  I do not pretend to say that I was not afraid.  The near
prospect of a violent death caused my heart to sink more than once; but
my feelings did not unman me.  I did my duty quietly, but quickly, like
the rest; and when I had no work to do, I stood holding on to the
weather stanchions, looking at the raging sea, and thinking of my
mother, and of the words of kindness and counsel she had so often
bestowed upon me in vain.

The storm ceased almost as quickly as it began, and although the sea did
not all at once stop the heavings of its angry bosom, the wind fell
entirely in the course of a few hours, the dark clouds broke up into
great masses that were piled up high into the sky, and out of the midst
of these the glorious sun shone in bright rays down on the ocean, like
comfort from heaven, gladdening our hearts as we busily repaired the
damage that we had suffered from the storm.



CHAPTER THREE.

OUR FIRST BATTLE.

I shall never forget the surprise I got the first time I saw a whale.

It was in the forenoon of a most splendid day, about a week after we
arrived at that part of the ocean where we might expect to find fish.  A
light nor'-east breeze was blowing, but it scarcely ruffled the sea, as
we crept slowly through the water with every stitch of canvas set.

As we had been looking out for fish for some time past, everything was
in readiness for them.  The boats were hanging over the side ready to
lower, tubs for coiling away the ropes, harpoons, lances, etcetera, all
were ready to throw in, and start away at a moment's notice.  The man in
the "crow's nest," as they call the cask fixed up at the mast-head, was
looking anxiously out for whales, and the crew were idling about the
deck.  Tom Lokins was seated on the windlass smoking his pipe, and I was
sitting beside him on an empty cask, sharpening a blubber-knife.

"Tom," said I, "what like is a whale?"

"Why, it's like nothin' but itself," replied Tom, looking puzzled.
"Why, wot a queer feller you are to ax questions."

"I'm sure you've seen plenty of them.  You might be able to tell what a
whale is like."

"Wot it's like!  Well, it's like a tremendous big bolster with a head
and a tail to it."

"And how big is it?"

"They're of all sizes, lad.  I've seen one that was exactly equal to
three hundred fat bulls, and its rate of goin' would take it round the
whole world in twenty-three days."

"I don't believe you," said I, laughing.

"Don't you?" cried Tom; "it's a fact notwithstandin', for the captain
himself said so, and that's how I came to know it."

Just as Tom finished speaking, the man in the crow's nest roared at the
top of his voice, "There she blows!"

That was the signal that a whale was in sight, and as it was the first
time we had heard it that season, every man in the ship was thrown into
a state of tremendous excitement.

"There she blows!" roared the man again.

"Where away?" shouted the captain.

"About two miles right ahead."

In another moment the utmost excitement prevailed on board.  Suddenly,
while I was looking over the side, straining my eyes to catch a sight of
the whale, which could not yet be seen by the men on deck, I saw a brown
object appear in the sea, not twenty yards from the side of the ship;
before I had time to ask what it was, a whale's head rose to the
surface, and shot up out of the water.  The part of the fish that was
visible above water could not have been less than thirty feet in length.
It just looked as if our longboat had jumped out of the sea, and he was
so near that I could see his great mouth quite plainly.  I could have
tossed a biscuit on his back easily.  Sending two thick spouts of frothy
water out of his blow-holes forty feet into the air with tremendous
noise, he fell flat upon the sea with a clap like thunder, tossed his
flukes, or tail, high into the air, and disappeared.

I was so amazed at this sight that I could not speak.  I could only
stare at the place where the huge monster had gone down.

"Stand by to lower," shouted the captain.

"Ay, ay, sir," replied the men, leaping to their appointed stations; for
every man in a whale-ship has his post of duty appointed to him, and
knows what to do when an order is given.

"Lower away," cried the captain, whose face was now blazing with
excitement.

In a moment more three boats were in the water; the tubs, harpoons,
etcetera, were thrown in, the men seized the oars, and away they went
with a cheer.  I was in such a state of flutter that I scarce knew what
I did; but I managed somehow or other to get into a boat, and as I was a
strong fellow, and a good rower, I was allowed to pull.

"There she blows!" cried the man in the crow's nest, just as we shot
from the side of the ship.  There was no need to ask, "where away" this
time.  Another whale rose and spouted not more than three hundred yards
off, and before we could speak a third fish rose in another direction,
and we found ourselves in the middle, of what is called a "school of
whales."

"Now, lads," said the captain, who steered the boat in which I rowed,
"bend your backs, my hearties; that fish right ahead of us is a
hundred-barrel whale for certain.  Give way, boys; we _must_ have that
fish."

There was no need to urge the men, for their backs were strained to the
utmost, their faces were flushed, and the big veins in their necks
swelled almost to bursting, with the tremendous exertion.

"Hold hard," said the captain, in a low voice, for now that we were
getting near our prey, we made as little noise as possible.

The men at once threw their oars "apeak," as they say; that is, raised
them straight up in the air, and waited for further orders.  We expected
the whale would rise near to where we were, and thought it best to rest
and look out.

While we were waiting, Tom Lokins, who was harpooner of the boat, sat
just behind me with all his irons ready.  He took this opportunity to
explain to me that by a "hundred-barrel fish" is meant a fish that will
yield a hundred-barrels of oil.  He further informed me that such a fish
was a big one, though he had seen a few in the North-west Seas that had
produced upwards of two hundred-barrels.

I now observed that the other boats had separated, and each had gone
after a different whale.  In a few minutes the fish we were in chase of
rose a short distance off, and sent up two splendid water-spouts high
into the air, thus showing that he was what the whalers call a "right"
whale.  It is different from the sperm whale, which has only one
blow-hole, and that a little one.

We rowed towards it with all our might, and as we drew near, the captain
ordered Tom Lokins to "stand up," so he at once laid in his oar, and
took up the harpoon.  The harpoon is an iron lance with a barbed point.
A whale-line is attached to it, and this line is coiled away in a tub.
When we were within a few yards of the fish, which was going slowly
through the water, all ignorant of the terrible foes who were pursuing
him, Tom Lokins raised the harpoon high above his head, and darted it
deep into its fat side just behind the left fin, and next moment the
boat ran aground on the whale's back.

"Stern all, for your lives!" roared the captain, who, before his order
was obeyed, managed to give the creature two deep wounds with his lance.
The lance has no barbs to its point, and is used only for wounding
after the harpoon is fixed.

The boat was backed off at once, but it had scarcely got a few yards
away when the astonished fish whirled its huge body half out of the
water, and, coming down with a tremendous clap, made off like lightning.

The line was passed round a strong piece of wood called the
"logger-head," and, in running out, it began to smoke, and nearly set
the wood on fire.  Indeed, it would have done so, if a man had not kept
constantly pouring water upon it.  It was needful to be very cautious in
managing the line, for the duty is attended with great danger.  If any
hitch should take place, the line is apt to catch the boat and drag it
down bodily under the waves.  Sometimes a coil of it gets round a leg or
an arm of the man who attends to it, in which case his destruction is
almost certain.  Many a poor fellow has lost his life in this way.

The order was now given to "hold on line."  This was done, and in a
moment our boat was cleaving the blue water like an arrow, while the
white foam curled from her bows.  I thought every moment we should be
dragged under; but whenever this seemed likely to happen, the line was
let run a bit, and the strain eased.  At last the fish grew tired of
dragging us, the line ceased to run out, and Tom hauled in the slack,
which another man coiled away in its tub.  Presently the fish rose to
the surface, a short distance off our weather-bow.

"Give way, boys! spring your oars," cried the captain; "another touch or
two with the lance, and that fish is ours."

The boat shot ahead, and we were about to dart a second harpoon into the
whale's side, when it took to "sounding,"--which means, that it went
straight down, head foremost, into the depths of the sea.  At that
moment Tom Lokins uttered a cry of mingled anger and disappointment.  We
all turned round and saw our shipmate standing with the slack line in
his hand, and such an expression on his weather-beaten face, that I
could scarce help laughing.  The harpoon had not been well fixed; it had
lost its hold, and the fish was now free!

"Gone!" exclaimed the captain, with a groan.

I remember even yet the feeling of awful disappointment that came over
me when I understood that we had lost the fish after all our trouble!  I
could almost have wept with bitter vexation.  As for my comrades, they
sat staring at each other for some moments quite speechless.  Before we
could recover from the state into which this misfortune had thrown us,
one of the men suddenly shouted, "Hallo! there's the mate's boat in
distress."

We turned at once, and, truly, there was no doubt of the truth of this,
for, about half a mile off, we beheld our first mate's boat tearing over
the sea like a small steamer.  It was fast to a fish, and two oars were
set up on end to attract our attention.

When a whale is struck, it sometimes happens that the whole of the line
in a boat is run out.  When this is about to occur, it becomes necessary
to hold on as much as can be done without running the boat under the
water, and an oar is set up on end to show that assistance is required,
either from the ship or from the other boats.  As the line grows less
and less, another and another oar is hoisted to show that help must be
sent quickly.  If no assistance can be sent, the only thing that remains
to be done is to cut the line and lose the fish; but a whale-line, with
its harpoon, is a very heavy loss, in addition to that of the fish, so
that whalers are tempted to hold on a little too long sometimes.

When we saw the mate's boat dashing away in this style, we forgot our
grief at the loss of our whale in our anxiety to render assistance to
our comrades, and we rowed towards them as fast as we could.
Fortunately the whale changed its course, and came straight towards us,
so that we ceased pulling, and waited till they came up.  As the boat
came on I saw the foam curling up on her bows as she leaped and flew
over the sea.  I could scarcely believe it possible that wood and iron
could bear such a strain.  In a few minutes they were almost abreast of
us.

"You're holding too hard!" shouted the captain.

"Lines all out!" roared the mate.

They were past almost before these short sentences could be spoken.  But
they had not gone twenty yards ahead of us when the water rushed in over
the bow, and before we could utter a word the boat and crew were gone.
Not a trace of them remained!  The horror of the moment had not been
fully felt, however, when the boat rose to the surface keel up, and, one
after another, the heads of the men appeared.  The line had fortunately
broken, otherwise the boat would have been lost, and the entire crew
probably would have gone to the bottom with her.

We instantly pulled to the rescue, and were thankful to find that not a
man was killed, though some of them were a little hurt, and all had
received a terrible fright.  We next set to work to right the upset
boat, an operation which was not accomplished without much labour and
difficulty.

Now, while we were thus employed, our third boat, which was in charge of
the second mate, had gone after the whale that had caused us so much
trouble, and, when we had got the boat righted and began to look about
us, we found that she was fast to the fish about a mile to leeward.

"Hurrah, lads!" cried the captain, "luck has not left us yet.  Give way,
my hearties, pull like Britons! we'll get that fish yet."

We were all dreadfully done up by this time, but the sight of a boat
fast to a whale restored us at once, and we pulled away as stoutly as if
we had only begun the day's work.  The whale was heading in the
direction of the ship, and when we came up to the scene of action the
second mate had just "touched the life"; in other words, he had driven
the lance deep down into the whale's vitals.  This was quickly known by
jets of blood being spouted up through the blow-holes.  Soon after, our
victim went into its dying agonies, or, as whalemen say, "his flurry."

This did not last long.  In a short time he rolled over dead.  We
fastened a line to his tail, the three boats took the carcass in tow,
and, singing a lively song, we rowed away to the ship.

Thus ended our first battle with the whales.



CHAPTER FOUR.

"CUTTING-IN THE BLUBBER" AND "TRYING OUT THE OIL."

The scene that took place on board ship after we caught our first fish
was most wonderful.

We commenced the operation of what is called "cutting-in," that is,
cutting up the whale, and getting the fat or blubber hoisted in.  The
next thing we did was to "try out" the oil, or melt down the fat in
large iron pots brought with us for this purpose; and the change that
took place in the appearance of the ship and the men when this began was
very remarkable.

When we left port our decks were clean, our sails white, our masts well
scraped; the brass-work about the quarter-deck was well polished, and
the men looked tidy and clean.  A few hours after our first whale had
been secured alongside all this was changed.  The cutting up of the huge
carcass covered the decks with oil and blood, making them so slippery
that they had to be covered with sand to enable the men to walk about.
Then the smoke of the great fires under the melting-pots begrimed the
masts, sails, and cordage with soot.  The faces and hands of the men got
so covered with oil and soot that it would have puzzled any one to say
whether they were white or black.  Their clothes, too, became so dirty
that it was impossible to clean them.  But, indeed, whalemen do not much
mind this.  In fact, they take a pleasure in all the dirt that surrounds
them, because it is a sign of success in the main object of their
voyage.  The men in a _clean_ whale-ship are never happy.  When
everything is filthy, and dirty, and greasy, and smoky, and black--
decks, rigging, clothes, and person--it is then that the hearty laugh
and jest and song are heard as the crew work busily, night and day, at
their rough but profitable labour.

The operations of "cutting-in" and "trying out" were matters of great
interest to me the first time I saw them.

After having towed our whale to the ship, cutting-in was immediately
begun.  First, the carcass was secured near the head and tail with
chains, and made fast to the ship; then the great blocks and ropes
fastened to the main and foremast for hoisting in the blubber were
brought into play.  When all was ready, the captain and the two mates,
with Tom Lokins, got upon the whale's body, with long-handled sharp
spades or digging-knives.  With these they fell to work cutting off the
blubber.

I was stationed at one of the hoisting ropes, and while we were waiting
for the signal to "hoist away," I peeped over the side, and for the
first time had a good look at the great fish.  When we killed it, so
much of its body was down in the water that I could not see it very
clearly, but now that it was lashed at full length alongside the ship,
and I could look right down upon it, I began to understand more clearly
what a large creature it was.  One thing surprised me much; the top of
its head, which was rough and knotty like the bark of an old tree, was
swarming with little crabs and barnacles, and other small creatures.
The whale's head seemed to be their regular home!  This fish was by no
means one of the largest kind, but being the first I had seen, I fancied
it must be the largest fish in the sea.

Its body was forty feet long, and twenty feet round at the thickest
part.  Its head, which seemed to me a great, blunt, shapeless thing,
like a clumsy old boat, was eight feet long from the tip to the
blow-holes or nostrils; and these holes were situated on the back of the
head, which at that part was nearly four feet broad.  The entire head
measured about twenty-one feet round.  Its ears were two small holes, so
small that it was difficult to discover them, and the eyes were also
very small for so large a body, being about the same size as those of an
ox.  The mouth was very large, and the under jaw had great ugly lips.

When it was dying, I saw these lips close in once or twice on its fat
cheeks, which it bulged out like the leather sides of a pair of gigantic
bellows.  It had two fins, one on each side, just behind the head.  With
these, and with its tail, the whale swims and fights.  Its tail is its
most deadly weapon.  The flukes of this one measured thirteen feet
across, and with one stroke of this it could have smashed our largest
boat in pieces.  Many a boat has been sent to the bottom in this way.

I remember hearing our first mate tell of a wonderful escape a comrade
of his had in the Greenland Sea fishery.  A whale had been struck, and,
after its first run, they hauled up to it again, and rowed so hard that
they ran the boat right against it.  The harpooner was standing on the
bow all ready, and sent his iron cleverly into the blubber.  In its
agony the whale reared its tail high out of the water, and the flukes
whirled for a moment like a great fan just above the harpooner's head.
One glance up was enough to show him that certain death was descending.
In an instant he dived over the side and disappeared.  Next moment the
flukes came down on the part of the boat he had just left, and cut it
clean off; the other part was driven into the waves, and the men were
left swimming in the water.  They were all picked up, however, by
another boat that was in company, and the harpooner was recovered with
the rest.  His quick dive had been the saving of his life.

I had not much time given me to study the appearance of this whale
before the order was given to "hoist away!" so we went to work with a
will.  The first part that came up was the huge lip, fastened to a large
iron hook, called the blubber hook.  It was lowered into the
blubber-room between decks, where a couple of men were stationed to stow
the blubber away.  Then came the fins, and after them the upper-jaw,
with the whalebone attached to it.  The "right" whale has no teeth like
the sperm whale.  In place of teeth it has the well-known substance
called whalebone, which grows from the roof of its mouth in a number of
broad thin plates, extending from the back of the head to the snout.
The lower edges of these plates of whalebone are split into thousands of
hairs like bristles, so that the inside roof of a whale's mouth
resembles an enormous blacking brush!  The object of this curious
arrangement is to enable the whale to catch the little shrimps and small
sea-blubbers, called "medusae," on which it feeds.  I have spoken before
of these last as being the little creatures that gave out such a
beautiful pale-blue light at night.  The whale feeds on them.  When he
desires a meal he opens his great mouth and rushes into the midst of a
shoal of medusae; the little things get entangled in thousands among the
hairy ends of the whalebone, and when the monster has got a large enough
mouthful, he shuts his lower-jaw and swallows what his net has caught.

The wisdom as well as the necessity of this arrangement is very plain.
Of course, while dashing through the sea in this fashion, with his mouth
agape, the whale must keep his throat closed, else the water would rush
down it and choke him.  Shutting his throat then, as he does, the water
is obliged to flow out of his mouth as fast as it flows in; it is also
spouted up through his blow-holes, and this with such violence that many
of the little creatures would be swept out along with it, but for the
hairy-ended whalebone which lets the sea-water out, but keeps the
medusae in.

Well, let us return to our "cutting-in."  After the upper-jaw came the
lower-jaw and throat, with the tongue.  This last was an enormous mass
of fat, about as large as an ox, and it weighed fifteen hundred or two
thousand pounds.  After this was got in, the rest of the work was
simple.  The blubber of the body was peeled off in great strips,
beginning at the neck and being cut spirally towards the tail.  It was
hoisted on board by the blocks, the captain and mates cutting, and the
men at the windlass hoisting, and the carcass slowly turning round until
we got an unbroken piece of blubber, reaching from the water to nearly
as high as the mainyard-arm.  This mass was nearly a foot thick, and it
looked like fat pork.  It was cut off close to the deck, and lowered
into the blubber-room, where the two men stationed there attacked it
with knives, cut it into smaller pieces, and stowed it away.  Then
another piece was hoisted on board in the same fashion, and so on we
went till every bit of blubber was cut off; and I heard the captain
remark to the mate when the work was done, that the fish was a good fat
one, and he wouldn't wonder if it turned out to be worth 300 pounds
sterling.

Now, when this process was going on, a new point of interest arose which
I had not thought of before, although my messmate, Tom Lokins, had often
spoken of it on the voyage out.  This was the arrival of great numbers
of sea-birds.

Tom had often told me of the birds that always keep company with
whalers; but I had forgotten all about it, until I saw an enormous
albatross come sailing majestically through the air towards us.  This
was the largest bird I ever saw, and no wonder, for it is the largest
bird that flies.  Soon after that, another arrived, and although we were
more than a thousand miles from any shore, we were speedily scented out
and surrounded by hosts of gonies, stinkards, haglets, gulls, pigeons,
petrels, and other sea-birds, which commenced to feed on pieces of the
whale's carcass with the most savage gluttony.  These birds were
dreadfully greedy.  They had stuffed themselves so full in the course of
a short time, that they flew heavily and with great difficulty.  No
doubt they would have to take three or four days to digest that meal!

Sharks, too, came to get their share of what was going.  But these
savage monsters did not content themselves with what was thrown away;
they were so bold as to come before our faces and take bites out of the
whale's body.  Some of these sharks were eight and nine feet long, and
when I saw them open their horrid jaws, armed with three rows of
glistening white sharp teeth, I could well understand how easily they
could bite off the leg of a man, as they often do when they get the
chance.  Sometimes they would come right up on the whale's body with a
wave, bite out great pieces of the flesh, turn over on their bellies,
and roll off.

While I was looking over the side during the early part of that day, I
saw a very large shark come rolling up in this way close to Tom Lokins'
legs.  Tom made a cut at him with his blubber-spade, but the shark
rolled off in time to escape the blow.  And after all it would not have
done him much damage, for it is not easy to frighten or take the life
out of a shark.

"Hand me an iron and line, Bob," said Tom, looking up at me.  "I've got
a spite agin that feller.  He's been up twice already.  Ah! hand it down
here, and two or three of ye stand by to hold on by the line.  There he
comes, the big villain!"

The shark came close to the side of the whale at that moment, and Tom
sent the harpoon right down his throat.

"Hold on hard," shouted Tom.

"Ay, ay," replied several of the men as they held on to the line, their
arms jerking violently as the savage fish tried to free itself.  We
quickly reeved a line through a block at the fore yard-arm, and hauled
it on deck with much difficulty.  The scene that followed was very
horrible, for there was no killing the brute.  It threshed the deck with
its tail, and snapped so fiercely with its tremendous jaws, that we had
to keep a sharp look out lest it should catch hold of a leg.  At last
its tail was cut off, the body cut open, and all the entrails taken out,
yet even after this it continued to flap and thresh about the deck for
some time, and the heart continued to contract for twenty minutes after
it was taken out and pierced with a knife.

I would not have believed this had I not seen it with my own eyes.  In
case some of my readers may doubt its truth, I would remind them how
difficult it is, to kill some of those creatures, with which we are all
familiar.  The common worm, for instance, may be cut into a number of
small pieces, and yet each piece remains alive for some time after.

The skin of the shark is valued by the whalemen, because, when cleaned
and dry, it is as good as sand-paper, and is much used in polishing the
various things they make, out of whales' bones and teeth.

When the last piece of blubber had been cut off our whale, the great
chain that held it to the ship's side was cast off, and the now useless
carcass sank like a stone, much to the sorrow of some of the smaller
birds, which, having been driven away by their bigger comrades, had not
fed so heartily as they wished, perhaps!  But what was loss to the gulls
was gain to the sharks, which could follow the carcass down into the
deep and devour it at their leisure.

"Now, lads," cried the mate, when the remains had vanished, "rouse up
the fires, look alive, my hearties!"

"Ay, ay, sir," was the ready reply, cheerfully given, as every man
sprang to his appointed duty.

And so, having "cut in" our whale, we next proceeded to "try out" the
oil.



CHAPTER FIVE.

A STORM, A MAN OVERBOARD, AND A RESCUE.

The scenes in a whaleman's life are varied and very stirring.  Sometimes
he is floating on the calm ocean, idling about the deck and whistling
for a breeze, when all of a sudden the loud cry is heard, "There she
blows!" and in a moment the boats are in the water, and he is engaged in
all the toils of an exciting chase.  Then comes the battle with the
great leviathan of the deep, with all its risks and dangers.  Sometimes
he is unfortunate, the decks are clean, he has nothing to do.  At other
times he is lucky, "cutting-in" and "trying out" engage all his energies
and attention.  Frequently storms toss him on the angry deep, and show
him, if he will but learn the lesson, how helpless a creature he is, and
how thoroughly dependent at all times for life, safety, and success,
upon the arm of God.

"Trying out" the oil, although not so thrilling a scene as many a one in
his career, is, nevertheless, extremely interesting, especially at
night, when the glare of the fires in the try-works casts a deep red
glow on the faces of the men, on the masts and sails, and even out upon
the sea.

The try-works consisted of two huge melting-pots fixed upon brick-work
fireplaces between the fore and main masts.  While some of the men were
down in the blubber-room cutting the "blanket-pieces," as the largest
masses are called, others were pitching the smaller pieces on deck,
where they were seized by two men who stood near a block of wood, called
a "horse," with a mincing knife, to slash the junks so as to make them
melt easily.  These were then thrown into the melting-pots by one of the
mates, who kept feeding the fires with such "scraps" of blubber as
remain after the oil is taken out.  Once the fires were fairly set
agoing no other kind of fuel was required than "scraps" of blubber.  As
the boiling oil rose it was baled into copper cooling-tanks.  It was the
duty of two other men to dip it out of these tanks into casks, which
were then headed up by our cooper, and stowed away in the hold.

As the night advanced the fires became redder and brighter by contrast,
the light shone and glittered on the decks, and, as we plied our dirty
work, I could not help thinking, "what _would_ my mother say, if she
could get a peep at me now?"

The ship's crew worked and slept by watches, for the fires were not
allowed to go out all night.  About midnight I sat down on the windlass
to take a short rest, and began talking to one of the men, Fred Borders
by name.  He was one of the quietest and most active men in the ship,
and, being quite a young man, not more than nineteen, he and I drew to
one another, and became very intimate.

"I think we're goin' to have a breeze, Bob," said he, as a sharp puff of
wind crossed the deck, driving the black smoke to leeward, and making
the fire flare up in the try-works.

"I hope it won't be a storm, then," said I, "for it will oblige us to
put out the fires."

Just then Tom Lokins came up, ordered Fred to go and attend to the
fires, sat down opposite to me on the windlass, and began to "lay down
the law" in regard to storms.

"You see, Bob Ledbury," said he, beginning to fill his pipe, "young
fellers like you don't know nothin' about the weather--'cause why?
you've got no experience.  Now, I'll put you up to a dodge consarning
this very thing."

I never found out what was the dodge that Tom, in his wisdom, was to
have put me up to, for at that moment the captain came on deck, and gave
orders to furl the top-gallant sails.

Three or four of us ran up the rigging like monkeys, and in a few
minutes the sails were lashed to the yards.

The wind now began to blow steadily from the nor'-west; but not so hard
as to stop our try-works for more than an hour.  After that it blew
stiff enough to raise a heavy sea, and we were compelled to slack the
fires.  This was all the harm it did to us, however, for although the
breeze was stiffish, it was nothing like a gale.

As the captain and the first mate walked the quarter-deck together, I
heard the former say to the latter, "I think we had as well take in a
reef in the topsails.  All hereabouts the fishing-ground is good, we
don't need to carry on."

The order was given to reduce sail, and the men lay out on the topsail
yards.  I noticed that my friend Fred Borders was the first man to
spring up the shrouds and lay out on the main-top-sail yard.  It was so
dark that I could scarcely see the masts.  While I was gazing up, I
thought I observed a dark object drop from the yard; at the same moment
there was a loud shriek, followed by a plunge in the sea.  This was
succeeded by the sudden cry, "man overboard!" and instantly the whole
ship was in an uproar.

No one who has not heard that cry can understand the dreadful feelings
that are raised in the human breast by it.  My heart at first seemed to
leap into my mouth, and almost choke me.  Then a terrible fear, which I
cannot describe, shot through me, when I thought it might be my comrade
Fred Borders.  But these thoughts and feelings passed like lightning--in
a far shorter time than it takes to write them down.  The shriek was
still ringing in my ears, when the captain roared--

"Down your helm! stand by to lower away the boats."

At the same moment he seized a light hen-coop and tossed it overboard,
and the mate did the same with an oar in the twinkling of an eye.
Almost without knowing what I did, or why I did it, I seized a great
mass of oakum and rubbish that lay on the deck saturated with oil, I
thrust it into the embers of the fire in the try-works and hurled it
blazing into the sea.

The ship's head was thrown into the wind, and we were brought to as
quickly as possible.  A gleam of hope arose within me on observing that
the mass I had thrown overboard continued still to burn; but when I saw
how quickly it went astern, notwithstanding our vigorous efforts to stop
the ship, my heart began to sink, and when, a few moments after, the
light suddenly disappeared, despair seized upon me, and I gave my friend
up for lost.

At that moment, strange to say, thoughts of my mother came into my mind,
but there was no time to be lost, and I threw myself, with a good deal
of energy, into the first boat that was lowered, and pulled at the oar
as if my own life depended on it.

A lantern had been fastened to the end of an oar and set up in the boat,
and by its faint light I could see that the men looked very grave.  Tom
Lokins was steering, and I sat near him, pulling the aft oar.

"Do you think we've any chance, Tom?" said I.

A shake of the head was his only reply.

"It must have been here away," said the mate, who stood up in the bow
with a coil of rope at his feet, and a boat-hook in his hand.  "Hold on,
lads, did any one hear a cry?"

No one answered.  We all ceased pulling, and listened intently; but the
noise of the waves and the whistling of the winds were all the sounds we
heard.

"What's that floating on the water?" said one of the men, suddenly.

"Where away?" cried every one eagerly.

"Right off the lee-bow--there, don't you see it?"

At that moment a faint cry came floating over the black water, and died
away in the breeze.

The single word "Hurrah!" burst from our throats with all the power of
our lungs, and we bent to our oars till we well-nigh tore the rollocks
out of the boat.

"Hold hard! stern all!" roared the mate, as we went flying down to
leeward, and almost ran over the hen-coop, to which a human form was
seen to be clinging with the tenacity of a drowning man.  We had swept
down so quickly that we shot past it.  In an agony of fear lest my
friend should be again lost in the darkness, I leaped up and sprang into
the sea.  Tom Lokins, however, had noticed what I was about; he seized
me by the collar of my jacket, just as I reached the water, and held me
with a grip like a vice till one of the men came to his assistance, and
dragged me back into the boat.  In a few moments more we reached the
hen-coop, and Fred was saved!

He was half dead with cold and exhaustion, poor fellow, but in a few
minutes he began to recover, and before we reached the ship he could
speak.  His first words were to thank God for his deliverance.  Then he
added--

"And, thanks to the man that flung that light overboard.  I should have
gone down but for that.  It showed me where the hen-coop was."

I cannot describe the feeling of joy that filled my heart when he said
this.

"Ay, who wos it that throw'd that fire overboard?" inquired one of the
men.

"Don't know," replied another, "I think it wos the cap'n."

"You'll find that out when we get aboard," cried the mate; "pull away,
lads."

In five minutes Fred Borders was passed up the side and taken down
below.  In two minutes more we had him stripped naked, rubbed dry,
wrapped in hot blankets, and set down on one of the lockers, with a hot
brick at his feet.



CHAPTER SIX.

THE WHALE--FIGHTING BULLS, ETCETERA.

As the reader may, perhaps, have been asking a few questions about the
whale in his own mind, I shall try to answer them, by telling a few
things concerning that creature which, I think, are worth knowing.

In the first place, the whale is not a fish!  I have applied that name
to it, no doubt, because it is the custom to do so; but there are great
differences between the whales and the fishes.  The mere fact that the
whale lives in water is not sufficient to prove it to be a fish.  The
frog lives very much in water--he is born in the water, and, when very
young, he lives in it altogether--would die, in fact, if he were taken
out of it; yet a frog is not a fish.

The following are some of the differences existing between a whale and a
fish:--

The whale is a warm-blooded animal; the fish is cold-blooded.  The whale
brings forth its young alive; while most fishes lay eggs or spawn.
Moreover, the fish lives entirely under water, but the whale cannot do
so.  He breathes air through enormous lungs, not gills.  If you were to
hold a whale's head under water for much longer than an hour, it would
certainly be drowned; and this is the reason why it comes so frequently
to the surface of the sea to take breath.  Whales seldom stay more than
an hour under water, and when they come up to breathe, they discharge
the last breath they took through their nostrils or blow-holes, mixed
with large quantities of water, which they have taken in while feeding.
But the most remarkable point of difference between the whale and fishes
of all kinds is, that it suckles its young.

The calf of one kind of whale is about fourteen feet long when it is
born, and it weighs about a ton.  The cow-whale usually has only one
calf at a time, and the manner in which she behaves to her gigantic baby
shows that she is affected by feelings of anxiety and affection such as
are never seen in fishes, which heartless creatures forsake their eggs
when they are laid, and I am pretty sure they would not know their own
children if they happened to meet with them.

The whale, on the contrary, takes care of her little one, gives it suck,
and sports playfully with it in the waves; its enormous heart throbbing
all the while, no doubt, with satisfaction.

I have heard of a whale which was once driven into shoal water with its
calf and nearly stranded.  The huge dam seemed to become anxious for the
safety of her child, for she was seen to swim eagerly round it, embrace
it with her fins, and roll it over in the waves, trying to make it
follow her into deep water.  But the calf was obstinate; it would not
go, and the result was that the boat of a whaler pulled up and harpooned
it.  The poor little whale darted away like lightning on receiving the
terrible iron, and ran out a hundred fathoms of line; but it was soon
overhauled and killed.  All this time the dam kept close to the side of
its calf, and not until a harpoon was plunged into her own side would
she move away.  Two boats were after her.  With a single rap of her tail
she cut one of the boats in two, and then darted off.  But in a short
time she turned and came back.  Her feelings of anxiety had returned, no
doubt, after the first sting of pain was over, and she died at last,
close to the side of her young one.

There are various kinds of whales, but the two sorts that are most
sought after are the common whale of the Greenland Seas, which is called
the "right whale," and the sperm whale of the South Sea.  Both kinds are
found in the south; but the sperm whale never goes to the North Seas.
Both kinds grow to an enormous size--sometimes to seventy feet in
length, but there is considerable difference in their appearance,
especially about the head.  In a former chapter I have partly described
the head of a _right_ whale, which has whalebone instead of teeth, with
its blow-holes on the back of the head.  The sperm whale has large white
teeth in its lower-jaw and none at all in the upper.  It has only one
blow-hole, and that a little one, much farther forward on its head, so
that sailors can tell, at a great distance, what kind of whales they
see, simply by their manner of spouting.

The most remarkable feature about the sperm whale is the bluntness of
its clumsy head, which looks somewhat like a big log with the end sawn
square off, and this head is about one-third of its entire body.

The sperm whale feeds differently from the right whale.  He seizes his
prey with his powerful teeth, and lives, to a great extent, on large
cuttlefish.  Some of them have been seen to vomit lumps of these
cuttlefish as long as a whale-boat.  He is much fiercer, too, than the
right whale, which almost always takes to flight when struck, but the
sperm whale will sometimes turn on its foes, and smash their boat with a
blow of his blunt head or tail.

Fighting-whales, as they are called, are not uncommon.  These are
generally old bulls, which have become wise from experience, and give
the whalers great trouble--sometimes carrying away several harpoons and
lines.  The lower-jaw of one old bull of this kind was found to be
sixteen feet long, and it had forty-eight teeth, some of them a foot
long.  A number of scars about his head showed that this fellow had been
in the wars.  When two bull-whales take to fighting, their great effort
is to catch each other by the lower-jaw, and, when locked together, they
struggle with a degree of fury that cannot be described.

It is not often that the sperm whale actually attacks a ship; but there
are a few cases of this kind which cannot be doubted.  The following
story is certainly true; and while it shows how powerful a creature the
whale is, it also shows what terrible risk and sufferings the whaleman
has frequently to encounter.

In the month of August 1819, the American whale-ship _Essex_ sailed from
Nantucket for the Pacific Ocean.  She was commanded by Captain Pollard.
Late in the autumn of the same year, when in latitude 40 degrees of the
South Pacific, a shoal, or "school," of sperm whales was discovered, and
three boats were immediately lowered and sent in pursuit.  The mate's
boat was struck by one of the fish during the chase, and it was found
necessary to return to the ship to repair damages.

While the men were employed at this, an enormous whale suddenly rose
quite close to the ship.  He was going at nearly the same rate with the
ship--about three miles an hour; and the men, who were good judges of
the size of whales, thought that it could not have been less than
eighty-five feet long.  All at once he ran against the ship, striking
her bows, and causing her to tremble like a leaf.  The whale immediately
dived and passed under the ship, and grazed her keel in doing so.  This
evidently hurt his back, for he suddenly rose to the surface about fifty
yards off, and commenced lashing the sea with his tail and fins as if
suffering great agony.  It was truly an awful sight to behold that great
monster lashing the sea into foam at so short a distance.

In a short time he seemed to recover, and started off at great speed to
windward.  Meanwhile the men discovered that the blow received by the
ship had done her so much damage, that she began to fill and settle down
at the bows; so they rigged the pumps as quickly as possible.  While
working them one of the men cried out--

"God have mercy! he comes again!"

This was too true.  The whale had turned, and was now bearing down on
them at full speed, leaving a white track of foam behind him.  Rushing
at the ship like a battering-ram, he hit her fair on the weather bow,
and stove it in, after which he dived and disappeared.  The horrified
men took to their boats at once, and in _ten minutes_ the ship went
down.

The condition of the men thus left in three open boats far out upon the
sea, without provisions or shelter, was terrible indeed.  Some of them
perished, and the rest, after suffering the severest hardships, reached
a low island called Ducies, on the 20th of December.  It was a mere
sand-bank, which supplied them only with water and seafowl.  Still even
this was a mercy, for which they had reason to thank God; for in cases
of this kind one of the evils that seamen have most cause to dread is
the want of water.

Three of the men resolved to remain on this sand-bank, for dreary and
uninhabited though it was, they preferred to take their chance of being
picked up by a passing ship rather than run the risks of crossing the
wide ocean in open boats, so their companions bade them a sorrowful
farewell, and left them.  But this island is far out of the usual track
of ships.  The poor fellows have never since been heard of.

It was the 27th of December when the three boats left the sand-bank with
the remainder of the men, and began a voyage of two thousand miles,
towards the island of Juan Fernandez.  The mate's boat was picked up,
about three months after, by the ship _Indian_ of London, with only
three living men in it.  About the same time the captain's boat was
discovered, by the _Dauphin_ of Nantucket, with only two men living; and
these unhappy beings had only sustained life by feeding on the flesh of
their dead comrades.  The third boat must have been lost, for it was
never heard of; and out of the whole crew of twenty men, only five
returned home to tell their eventful story.

Before resuming the thread of my narrative, I must not omit to mention,
that in the head of the sperm whale there is a large cavity or hole
called the "case," which contains pure oil that does not require to be
melted, but can be bailed at once into casks and stowed away.  This is
the valuable spermaceti from which the finest candles are made.  One
whale will sometimes yield fifteen barrels of spermaceti oil from the
"case" of its head.  A large fish will produce from eighty to a
hundred-barrels of oil altogether, sometimes much more; and when
whalemen converse with each other, about the size of whales, they speak
of "eighty-barrel fish," and so on.

Although I have written much about the fighting powers of the sperm
whale, it must not be supposed that whales are by nature fond of
fighting.  On the contrary, the "right" whale is a timid creature, and
never shows fight, except in defence of its young.  And the sperm whale
generally takes to flight when pursued.  In fact, most of the accidents
that happen to whalemen occur when the wounded monster is lashing the
water in blind terror and agony.

The whale has three bitter enemies, much smaller, but much bolder than
himself, and of these he is terribly afraid.  They are the swordfish,
the thrasher, and the killer.  The first of these, the swordfish, has a
strong straight horn or sword projecting from his snout, with which he
boldly attacks and pierces the whale.  The thrasher is a strong fish,
twenty feet long, and of great weight.  Its method of attack is to leap
out of the water on the whale's back, and deal it a tremendous blow with
its powerful tail.

The swordfish and thrasher sometimes act together in the attack; the
first stabbing him below, and the second belabouring him above, while
the whale, unable, or too frightened, to fight, rushes through the
water, and even leaps its whole gigantic length into the air in its
endeavours to escape.  When a whale thus leaps his whole length out of
the water, the sailors say he "breaches," and breaching is a common
practice.  They seem to do it often for amusement as well as from
terror.

But the most deadly of the three enemies is the killer.  This is itself
a kind of small whale, but it is wonderfully strong, swift, and bold.
When one of the killers gets into the middle, of a school of whales, the
frightened creatures are seen flying in all directions.  His mode of
attack is to seize his big enemy by the jaw, and hold on until he is
exhausted and dies.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

TOM'S WISDOM--ANOTHER GREAT BATTLE.

One day I was standing beside the windlass, listening to the
conversation of five or six of the men, who were busy sharpening
harpoons and cutting-knives, or making all kinds of toys and things out
of whales' bones.  We had just finished cutting-in and trying out our
third whale, and as it was not long since we reached the fishing-ground,
we were in high hopes of making a good thing of it that season; so that
every one was in good spirits, from the captain down to the youngest man
in the ship.

Tom Lokins was smoking his pipe, and Tom's pipe was an uncommonly black
one, for he smoked it very often.  Moreover, Tom's pipe was uncommonly
short, so short that I always wondered how he escaped burning the end of
his nose.  Indeed, some of the men said that the redness of the end of
Tom's nose was owing to its being baked like a brick by the heat of his
pipe.  Tom took this pipe from his mouth, and while he was pushing down
the tobacco with the end of his little finger, he said--

"D'ye know, lads, I've been thinkin'--"

"No, have ye?" cried one of the men, interrupting him with a look of
pretended surprise.  "Well now, I do think, messmates, that we should ax
the mate to make a note o' that in the log, for it's not often that Tom
Lokins takes to thinkin'."

There was a laugh at this, but Tom, turning with a look of contempt to
the man who interrupted him, replied--

"I'll tell you wot it is, Bill Blunt, if all the thoughts that _you_
think, and especially the jokes that you utter, wos put down in the log,
they'd be so heavy that I do believe they would sink the ship!"

"Well, well," cried Bill, joining in the laugh against himself, "if they
did, _your_ jokes would be so light and triflin' that I do believe
they'd float her again.  But what have you been a-thinkin' of, Tom?"

"I've been thinkin'," said Tom slowly, "that if a whale makes his
breakfast entirely off them little things that you can hardly see when
you get 'em into a tumbler--I forget how the captain calls 'em--wot a
_tree-mendous_ heap of 'em he must eat in the course of a year!"

"Thousands of 'em, I suppose," said one of the men.

"Thousands!" cried Tom, "I should rather say billions of them."

"How much is billions, mate?" inquired Bill.

"I don't know," answered Tom.  "Never could find out.  You see it's
heaps upon heaps of thousands, for the thousands come first and the
billions afterwards; but when I've thought uncommon hard, for a long
spell at a time, I always get confused, because millions comes in
between, d'ye see, and that's puzzlin'."

"I think I could give you some notion about these things," said Fred
Borders, who had been quietly listening all the time, but never putting
in a word, for, as I have said, Fred was a modest bashful man and seldom
spoke much.  But we had all come to notice that when Fred spoke, he had
always something to say worth hearing; and when he did speak he spoke
out boldly enough.  We had come to have feelings of respect for our
young shipmate, for he was a kind-hearted lad, and we saw by his
conversation that he had been better educated than the most of us, so
all our tongues stopped as the eyes of the party turned on him.

"Come, Fred, let's hear it then," said Tom.

"It's not much I have to tell," began Fred, "but it may help to make
your minds clearer on this subject.  On my first voyage to the
whale-fishery (you know, lads, this is my second voyage) I went to the
Greenland Seas.  We had a young doctor aboard with us--quite a youth;
indeed he had not finished his studies at college, but he was cleverer,
for all that, than many an older man that had gone through his whole
course.  I do believe that the reason of his being so clever was, that
he was for ever observing things, and studying them, and making notes,
and trying to find out reasons.  He was never satisfied with knowing a
thing; he must always find out _why_ it was.  One day I heard him ask
the captain what it was that made the sea so green in some parts of
those seas.  Our captain was an awfully stupid man.  So long as he got
plenty of oil he didn't care two straws for the reason of anything.  The
young doctor had been bothering him that morning with a good many
questions, so when he asked him what made the sea green, he answered
sharply, `I suppose it makes itself green, young man,' and then he
turned from him with a fling.

"The doctor laughed, and came forward among the men, and began to tell
us stories and ask questions.  Ah! he was a real hearty fellow; he would
tell you all kinds of queer things, and would pump you dry of all you
knew in no time.  Well, but the thing I was going to tell you was this.
One of the men said to him he had heard that the greenness of the
Greenland Sea, was caused by the little things like small bits of jelly,
on which the whales feed.  As soon as he heard this he got a bucket and
hauled some sea-water aboard, and for the next ten days he was never
done working away with the sea-water; pouring it into tumblers and
glasses; looking through it by daylight and by lamplight; tasting it,
and boiling it, and examining it with a microscope."

"What's a microscope?" inquired one of the men.

"Don't you know?" said Tom Lokins, "why it's a glass that makes little
things seem big, when ye look through it.  I've heerd say that beasts
that are so uncommon small that you can't see them at all are made to
come into sight, and look quite big, by means o' this glass.  But I
can't myself say that it's true."

"But I can," said Fred, "for I have seen it with my own eyes.  Well,
after a good while, I made bold to ask the young doctor what he had
found out.

"`I've found,' said he, `that the greenness of these seas is in truth
caused by uncountable numbers of medusae--'"

"Ha! that's the word," shouted Tom Lokins, "Medoosy, that's wot the
captain calls 'em.  Heave ahead, Fred."

"Well, then," continued Fred, "the young doctor went on to tell me that
he had been counting the matter to himself very carefully, and he found
that in every square mile of sea-water there were living about eleven
quadrillions, nine hundred and ninety-nine trillions of these little
creatures!"

"Oh! hallo! come now!" we all cried, opening our eyes very wide indeed.

"But, I say, how much is that?" inquired Tom Lokins.

"Ah! that's just what I said to the young doctor, and he said to me,
`I'll tell you what, Fred Borders, no man alive understands how much
that is, and what's more, no man ever will; but I'll give you _some
notion_ of what it means;' and so he told me how long it would take
forty thousand men to count that number of eleven quadrillions, nine
hundred and ninety-nine trillions, each man of the forty thousand
beginning `one,' `two,' `three,' and going on till the sum of the whole
added together would make it up.  Now, how long d'ye think it would take
them?--guess."

Fred Borders smiled as he said this, and looked round the circle of men.

"I know," cried one, "it would take the whole forty thousand a _week_ to
do it."

"Oh! nonsense, they could do it easy in two days," said another.

"That shows how little you know about big numbers," observed Tom Lokins,
knocking the ashes out of his pipe.  "I'm pretty sure it couldn't be
done in much less than six months; workin' hard all day, and makin'
allowance for only one hour off for dinner."

"You're all wrong, shipmates," said Fred Borders.  "That young doctor
told me that if they'd begun work at the day of creation they would only
have just finished the job last year!"

"Oh! gammon, you're jokin'," cried Bill Blunt.

"No, I'm not," said Fred, "for I was told afterwards by an old clergyman
that the young doctor was quite right, and that any one who was good at
'rithmetic could work the thing out for himself in less than
half-an-hour."

Just as Fred said this there came a loud cry from the mast-head that
made us all spring to our feet like lightning.

"There she blows!  There she breaches!"

The captain was on deck in a moment.

"Where away?" he cried.

"On the lee beam, sir.  Sperm whale, about two miles off.  There she
blows!"

Every man was at his station in a moment; for, after being some months
out, we became so used to the work, that we acted together like a piece
of machinery.  But our excitement never abated in the least.

"Sing out when the ship heads for her."

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Keep her away!" said the captain to the man at the helm.  "Bob Ledbury,
hand me the spyglass."

"Steady," from the mast-head.

"Steady it is," answered the man at the helm.

While we were all looking eagerly out ahead we heard a thundering snore
behind us, followed by a heavy splash.  Turning quickly round, we saw
the flukes of an enormous whale sweeping through the air not more than
six hundred yards astern of us.

"Down your helm," roared the captain; "haul up the mainsail, and square
the yards.  Call all hands."

"All hands, ahoy!" roared Bill Blunt, in a voice of thunder, and in
another moment every man in the ship was on deck.

"Hoist and swing the boats," cried the captain.  "Lower away."

Down went the boats into the water; the men were into their places
almost before you could wink, and we pulled away from the ship just as
the whale rose the second time, about half a mile away to leeward.

From the appearance of this whale we felt certain that it was one of the
largest we had yet seen, so we pulled after it with right good will.  I
occupied my usual place in the captain's boat, next the bow-oar, just
beside Tom Lokins, who was ready with his harpoons in the bow.  Young
Borders pulled the oar directly in front of me.  The captain himself
steered, and, as our crew was a picked one, we soon left the other two
boats behind us.

Presently a small whale rose close beside us, and, sending a shower of
spray over the boat, went down in a pool of foam.  Before we had time to
speak, another whale rose on the opposite side of the boat, and then
another on our starboard bow.  We had got into the middle of a shoal of
whales, which commenced leaping and spouting all round us, little aware
of the dangerous enemy that was so near.

In a few minutes more, up comes the big one again that we had first
seen.  He seemed very active and wild.  After blowing on the surface
once or twice, about a quarter of a mile off, he peaked his flukes, and
pitched down head foremost.

"Now then, lads, he's down for a long dive," said the captain; "spring
your oars like men, we'll get that fish for certain, if you'll only
pull."

The captain was mistaken; the whale had only gone down deep in order to
come up and breach, or spring out of the water, for the next minute he
came up not a hundred yards from us, and leaped his whole length into
the air.

A shout of surprise broke from the men, and no wonder, for this was the
largest fish I ever saw or heard of, and he came up so clear of the
water, that we could see him from head to tail, as he turned over in the
air, exposing his white belly to view, and came down on his great side
with a crash like thunder, that might have been heard six miles off.  A
splendid mass of pure white spray burst from the spot where he fell, and
in another moment he was gone.

"I do believe it's _New Zealand Tom_," cried Bill Blunt, referring to an
old bull whale that had become famous among the men who frequented these
seas, for its immense size and fierceness, and for the great trouble it
had given them, smashing some of their boats, and carrying away many of
their harpoons.

"I don't know whether it's New Zealand Tom or not," said the captain,
"but it's pretty clear that he's an old sperm bull.  Give way, lads, we
must get that whale, whatever it should cost us."

We did not need a second bidding; the size of the fish was so great that
we felt more excited than we had yet been during the voyage, so we bent
our oars till we almost pulled the boat out of the water.  The other
boats had got separated, chasing the little whales, so we had this one
all to ourselves.

"There she blows!" said Tom Lokins, in a low voice, as the fish came up
a short distance astern of us.

We had overshot our mark, so, turning about, we made for the whale,
which kept for a considerable time near the top of the water, spouting
now and then, and going slowly to windward.  We at last got within a few
feet of the monster, and the captain suddenly gave the word, "Stand up."

This was to our harpooner, Tom Lokins, who jumped up on the instant, and
buried two harpoons deep in the blubber.

"Stern all!" was the next word, and we backed off with all our might.
It was just in time, for, in his agony, the whale tossed his tail right
over our heads, the flukes were so big that they could have completely
covered the boat, and he brought them down flat on the sea with a clap
that made our ears tingle, while a shower of spray drenched us to the
skin.  For one moment I thought it was all over with us, but we were
soon out of immediate danger, and lay on our oars watching the writhings
of the wounded monster as he lashed the ocean into foam.  The water all
round us soon became white like milk, and the foam near the whale was
red with blood.

Suddenly this ceased, and, before we could pull up to lance him, he went
down, taking the line out at such a rate that the boat spun round, and
sparks of fire flew from the logger-head, from the chafing of the rope.

"Hold on!" cried the captain, and next moment we were tearing over the
sea at a fearful rate, with a bank of white foam rolling before us, high
above our bows, and away on each side of us like the track of a steamer,
so that we expected it every moment to rush in-board and swamp us.  I
had never seen anything like this before.  From the first I had a kind
of feeling that some evil would befall us.

While we were tearing over the water in this way, we saw the other
whales coming up every now and then, and blowing quite near to us, and
presently we passed close enough to the first mate's boat to see that he
was fast to a fish, and unable, therefore, to render us help if we
should need it.

In a short time the line began to slack, so we hauled it in hand over
hand, and Tom Lokins coiled it away in the tub in the stern of the boat,
while the captain took his place in the bow to be ready with the lance.
The whale soon came up, and we pulled with all our might towards him.
Instead of making off again, however, he turned round and made straight
at the boat.  I now thought that destruction was certain, for, when I
saw his great blunt forehead coming down on us like a steamboat, I felt
that we could not escape.  I was mistaken.  The captain received him on
the point of his lance, and the whale has such a dislike to pain, that
even a small prick will sometimes turn him.

For some time we kept dodging round this fellow; but he was so old and
wise, that he always turned his head to us, and prevented us from
getting a chance to lance him.  At last he turned a little to one side,
and the captain plunged the lance deep into his vitals.

"Ha! that's touched his life," cried Tom, as a stream of blood flew up
from his blow-holes, a sure sign that he was mortally wounded.  But he
was not yet conquered.  After receiving the cruel stab with the lance,
he pitched right down, head foremost, and once more the line began to
fly out over the bow.  We tried to hold on, but he was going so straight
down that the boat was almost swamped, and we had to slack off to
prevent our being pulled under water.

Before many yards of the line had run out, one of the coils in the tub
became entangled.

"Look out, lads," cried Tom, and at once throwing the turn off the
logger-head, he made an attempt to clear it.  The captain, in trying to
do the same thing, slipped and fell.  Seeing this, I sprang up, and,
grasping the coil as it flew past, tried to clear it.  Before I could
think, a turn whipped round my left wrist.  I felt a wrench as if my arm
had been torn out of the socket, and in a moment I was overboard, [see
frontispiece] going down with almost lightning speed into the depths of
the sea.  Strange to say, I did not lose my presence of mind.  I knew
exactly what had happened.  I felt myself rushing down, down, down, with
terrific speed; a stream of fire seemed to be whizzing past my eyes;
there was a dreadful pressure on my brain, and a roaring, as if of
thunder, in my ears.  Yet, even in that dread moment, thoughts of
eternity, of my sins, and of meeting with my God, flashed into my mind,
for thought is quicker than the lightning flash.

Of a sudden the roaring ceased, and I felt myself buffeting the water
fiercely in my efforts to reach the surface.  I know not how I got free,
but I suppose the turn of the line must have slackened off somehow.  All
this happened within the space of a few brief moments; but oh! they
seemed fearfully long to me.  I do not think I could have held my breath
a second longer.

When I came to the surface, and tried to look about me, I saw the boat
not more than fifty yards off, and, being a good swimmer, I struck out
for it, although I felt terribly exhausted.  In a few minutes my
comrades saw me, and, with a cheer put out the oars and began to row
towards me.  I saw that the line was slack, and that they were hauling
it in--a sign that the whale had ceased running and would soon come to
the surface again.  Before they had pulled half-a-dozen strokes I saw
the water open close beside the boat, and the monstrous head of the
whale shot up like a great rock rising out of the deep.

He was not more than three feet from the boat, and he came up with such
force, that more than half his gigantic length came out of the water
right over the boat.  I heard the captain's loud cry--"_Stern all_!"
But it was too late, the whole weight of the monster's body fell upon
the boat; there was a crash and a terrible cry, as the whale and boat
went down together.

For a few moments he continued to lash the sea in his fury, and the
fragments of the boat floated all round him.  I thought that every man,
of course, had been killed; but one after another their heads appeared
in the midst of blood and foam, and they struck out for oars and pieces
of the wreck.

Providentially, the whale, in his tossings, had shot a little away from
the spot, else every man must certainly have been killed.

A feeling of horror filled my heart, as I beheld all this, and thought
upon my position.  Fortunately, I had succeeded in reaching a broken
plank; for my strength was now so much exhausted, that I could not have
kept my head above water any longer without its assistance.  Just then I
heard a cheer, and the next time I rose on the swell, I looked quickly
round and saw the mate's boat making for the scene of action as fast as
a stout and willing crew could pull.  In a few minutes more I was
clutched by the arm, and hauled into it.  My comrades were next rescued,
and we thanked God when we found that none were killed, although one of
them had got a leg broken, and another an arm twisted out of joint.
They all, however, seemed to think that my escape was much more
wonderful than theirs; but I cannot say that I agreed with them in this.

We now turned our attention to the whale, which had dived again.  As it
was now loose, we did not know, of course, where it would come up, so we
lay still awhile.  Very soon up he came, not far from us, and as fierce
as ever.

"Now, lads, we _must_ get that whale," cried the mate; "give way with a
will."

The order was obeyed.  The boat almost leaped over the swell, and,
before long, another harpoon was in the whale's back.

"Fast again, hurrah!" shouted the mate, "now for the lance."

He gave the monster two deep stabs while he spoke, and spouting the red
stream of life, it rolled on the sea in agony, obliging us to keep well
out of its way.

I could not look upon the dying struggles of this enormous fish without
feelings of regret and self-reproach, for helping to destroy it.  I felt
almost as if I were a murderer, and that the Creator would call me to
account for taking part in the destruction of one of His grandest living
creatures.  But the thought passed quickly from my mind as the whale
became more violent and went into its flurry.  It began to lash the sea
with such astonishing violence, that all the previous struggles seemed
as nothing.  The water all round became white like milk, with great
streaks of red blood running through it, and the sound of the quick
blows of its tail and fins resembled that of dull hollow thunder.  We
gazed at this scene in deep silence and with beating hearts.

All at once the struggles ceased.  The great carcass rolled over belly
up, and lay extended on the sea in death.  To me it seemed as if a dead
calm had suddenly fallen around us, after a long and furious storm, so
great was the change when that whale at length parted with its huge
life.  The silence was suddenly broken by three hearty cheers, and then,
fastening a rope to our prize, we commenced towing it to the ship, which
operation occupied us the greater part of the night, for we had no fewer
than eight miles to pull.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

DEATH ON THE SEA.

The whale which we had taken, as I have related in the last chapter, was
our largest fish of that season.  It produced ninety barrels of oil, and
was worth about 500 pounds sterling, so that we did not grieve much over
the loss of our boat.

But our next loss was of a kind that could not be made up for by oil or
money, for it was the loss of a human life.  In the whale-fishery men
must, like soldiers, expect to risk their lives frequently, and they
have too often, alas! to mourn over the loss of a shipmate or friend.
Up to this time our voyage had gone prosperously.  We had caught so many
fish that nearly half our cargo was already completed, and if we should
be as lucky the remainder of the voyage, we should be able to return
home to Old England much sooner than we had expected.

Of course, during all this time we had met with some disappointments,
for I am not describing everything that happened on that voyage.  It
would require a much thicker volume than this to tell the half of our
adventures.  We lost five or six fish by their sinking before we could
get them made fast to the ship, and one or two bolted so fast that they
broke loose and carried away a number of harpoons, and many a fathom of
line.  But such misfortunes were what we had to look for.  Every whaler
meets with similar changes of luck, and we did not expect to fare
differently from our neighbours.  These things did not cause us much
regret beyond the time of their occurrence.  But it was far otherwise
with the loss that now befell us.

It happened one forenoon.  I was standing close to the starboard gangway
early that morning, looking over the side into the calm water, for there
was not a breath of wind, and talking to the first mate, who was a
gruff, surly man, but a good officer, and kind enough in his way when
everything went smooth with him.  But things don't go very smooth
generally in whaling life, so the mate was oftener gruff than sweet.

"Bob Ledbury," said he, "have you got your cutting-in gear in order?
I've got a notion that we'll `raise the oil' this day."

"All right, sir," said I, "you might shave yourself with the
blubber-spades.  That was a good fish we got last, sir, wasn't it?"

"Pretty good, though I've seen bigger."

"He gave us a deal of trouble too," said I.

"Not so much as I've seen others give," said he.  "When I was fishing in
the Greenland Seas we made fast to a whale that cost us I don't know how
many hundred dollars."  (You must know the first mate was a Yankee, and
he reckoned everything in dollars.)

"How was that, sir?" asked I.

"Well, it was something in this fashion.  We were floating about in the
North Atlantic one calm, hot day, just something like this, only it was
the afternoon, not the morning.  We were doing nothing, and whistling
for a breeze, when, all of a sudden, up comes five or six whales all
round the ship, as if they had spied her from the bottom of the sea, and
had come up to have a squint at her.  Of course the boats were manned at
once, and in less than no time we were tearing after them like all
alive.  But them whales were pretty wildish, I guess.  They kept us
pullin' the best part of five hours before we got a chance at them.  My
boat was out of sight of the ship before we made fast to a regular
snorer, a hundred-barreller at the least.  The moment he felt the iron,
away he went like the shot out of a gun; but he didn't keep it up long,
for soon after, another of our boats came up and made fast.  Well, for
some two or three hours we held fast, but could not haul on to him to
use the lance, for the moment we came close up alongside of his tail he
peaked flukes and dived, then up again, and away as fast as ever.  It
was about noon before we touched him again; but by that time two more
harpoons were made fast, and two other boats cast tow-lines aboard of
us, and were hauled along.  That was four boats, and more than sixteen
hundred fathoms of line, besides four harpoons that was fast to that
whale, and yet, for all that, he went ahead as fast as we could have
rowed, takin' us along with him quite easy.

"A breeze having sprung up, our ship overhauled us in the course of the
afternoon, and towards evening we sent a line on board, to see if that
would stop the big fish, and the topsails were lowered, so as to throw
some of the ship's weight on him, but the irons drew out with the
strain.  However, we determined to try it again.  Another line was sent
aboard about eight o'clock, and the topsails were lowered, but the line
snapped immediately.  Well, we held on to that whale the whole of that
night, and at four o'clock next morning, just thirty-six hours after he
was first struck, two fast lines were taken aboard the ship.  The breeze
was fresh, and against us, so the top-gallant sails were taken in, the
courses hauled up, and the topsails clewed down, yet, I assure you, that
whale towed the ship dead against the wind for an hour and a half at the
rate of two miles an hour, and all the while beating the water with his
fins and tail, so that the sea was in a continual foam.  We did not kill
that fish till after forty hours of the hardest work I ever went
through."

Some of my shipmates seemed to doubt the truth of this story; but, for
my part, I believed it, because the mate was a grave, truthful man,
though he was gruff, and never told lies, as far as I knew.  Moreover, a
case of the same kind happened some years afterwards, to a messmate of
mine, while he was serving aboard the _Royal Bounty_, on the 28th of May
1817.

I know that some of the stories which I now tell must seem very wild and
unlikely to landsmen; but those who have been to the whale-fishery will
admit that I tell nothing but the truth, and if there are any of my
readers who are still doubtful, I would say, go and read the works of
Captain Scoresby.  It is well known that this whaling captain was a
truly religious man, who gave up the fishing, though it turned him in
plenty of money, and became a minister of the gospel with a small
income, so it is not likely that he would have told what was untrue.
Well, in his works we find stories that are quite as remarkable as the
one I have just told, some of them more so.

For instance, he tells us of one whale, in the Greenland Seas, which was
not killed till it had drawn out ten thousand four hundred and forty
yards, or about _six miles_ of line, fastened to fifteen harpoons,
besides taking one of the boats entirely under water, which boat was
never seen again.

The mate told us two or three more stories, and a lot of us were
gathered round him, listening eagerly, for there is nothing Jack likes
so much as a _good yarn_, when all of a sudden, the man at the mast-head
sang out that a large sperm whale was spouting away two points off the
lee-bow.  Of course we were at our posts in a moment.

"There she blows! there she breaches!" sung the look-out.

"Lower away!" roared the captain.

The boats were in the water, and the men on their seats in a moment.

The whale we were after was a very large one; we could see that, for
after two hours' hard pulling we got near enough to throw a harpoon, and
after it was fixed he jumped clean out of the water.  Then there was the
usual battle.  It was fierce and long; so long that I began to fear we
would have to return empty handed to the ship.  We put ten harpoons into
him, one after another, and had a stiff run between the fixing of each.

It is astonishing the difference between the fish.  One will give you no
trouble at all.  I have often seen a good big fellow killed in half an
hour.  Another will take you half a day, and perhaps you may lose him
after all.  The whale we were now after, at last took to showing fight.
He made two or three runs at the boat, but the mate, who was in command,
pricked him off with the lance cleverly.  At last we gave him a severe
wound, and immediately he dived.

"That was into his life," remarked Tom Lokins, as we sat waiting for him
to come up again.  The captain's boat was close to ours, about ten yards
off.  We had not to wait long.  The sudden stoppage and slacking off of
all the lines showed that the whale was coming up.  All at once I saw a
dark object rising directly under the captain's boat.  Before I could
make out what it was, almost before I could think, the boat flew up into
the air, as if a powder magazine had exploded beneath it.  The whale had
come up, and hit it with his head right on the keel, so that it was
knocked into pieces, and the men, oars, harpoons, lances, and tackle
shot up in confusion into the air.

Immediately after that the whale went into his flurry, but we paid no
attention to him, in our anxiety to pick up our companions.  They all
came to the surface quickly enough, but while some made for the boats
vigorously, others swam slowly and with pain, showing that they were
hurt, while one or two floated, as if dead, upon the water.

Most of the men had escaped with only a few cuts and bruises, but one
poor fellow was hauled out of the water with a leg broken, and another
was so badly knocked about the head that it was a long time before he
was again fit for duty.  The worst case, however, was that of poor Fred
Borders.  He had a leg broken, and a severe wound in the side from a
harpoon which had been forced into the flesh over the barbs, so that we
could hardly get it drawn out.  We laid him in the stern of the boat,
where he lay for some time insensible; but in a short time he revived,
and spoke to us in a faint voice.  His first words were--"I'm dying,
messmates."

"Don't say that, Fred," said I, while my heart sank within me.  "Cheer
up, my boy, you'll live to be the death of many a whale yet.  See, put
your lips to this can--it will do you good."

He shook his head gently, being too weak to reply.

We had killed a big fish that day, and we knew that when he was "tried
in" we should have completed our cargo; but there was no cheer given
when the monster turned over on his side, and the pull to the ship that
evening seemed to us the longest and heaviest we ever had, for our
hearts were very sad.

Next day Fred was worse, and we all saw that his words would come
true,--he was dying.

I was permitted to nurse my poor messmate, and I spent much of my time
in reading the Bible to him, at his own request.

He lived about a week after the accident and then he died.  We buried
our shipmate in the usual sailor fashion.  We wrapped him in his
hammock, with a cannon-ball at his feet to sink him.  The captain read
the burial-service at the gangway, and then, in deep silence, we
committed his corpse to the deep.



CHAPTER NINE.

NEWS FROM HOME--A GAM.

The death of poor Fred Borders cast a gloom over the ship for many days.
Every one had respected, and many of us had loved the lad, so that we
mourned for him long and truly.  But a sailor's life is such a rough
one, requiring so much energy and hearty good-will to his work, that he
cannot afford to allow the sorrows of his heart to sit long on his
countenance.  In a day or two after no one would have supposed we had
lost one of our best men.  Whales appeared in great numbers around us.
The old cry of "There she blows!" ran out frequently from the mast-head,
and the answering cry from the captain, "Where away?" was followed by
the "Stand by to lower!--lower away."  Then came the chase, with all its
dangers and excitement--the driving of the harpoon, the sudden rush of
the struck fish, the smoke and sparks of fire from the logger-head, the
plunging of the lance, the spouting blood, the "flurry" at the end, and
the wild cheer as we beheld our prize floating calmly on the sea.  And
in the midst of such work we forgot for a time the solemn scene we had
so recently witnessed.  But our hearts were not so light as before, and
although we did not show it, I knew full well that many a joke was
checked, and many a laugh repressed, for the memory of our dead
shipmate.

The man who was most affected by his death was the captain; but we were
not prepared for the great change that soon appeared in his manner and
conduct.  After a time he laughed with the rest of us at a good joke,
and cheered as loud as the best when a big fish turned belly up, but his
behaviour to us became more gentle and kind, and he entirely gave up the
habit of swearing.  He also forbade working on Sunday.  Many a whale
have I seen sporting and spouting near us on that day, but never did we
lower a boat or touch a harpoon on Sunday.  Some of the men grumbled at
this, and complained of it to each other, but they never spoke so as to
let the captain hear, and they soon gave up their grumbling, for the
most of us were well pleased with the change, and all of us had agreed
to it.

The first Sunday after Fred's death, the captain assembled the crew on
the quarter-deck, and spoke to us about it.

"My lads," said he, "I've called you aft to make a proposal that may
perhaps surprise some of you.  Up to this time, you know very well,
there has been little difference aboard this ship between Saturday and
Sunday.  Since our poor shipmate died I have been thinkin' much on this
matter, and I've come to the conclusion that we shall rest from all work
on Sunday, except such as must be done to work the ship.  Now, lads, you
know me well enough by this time.  I have never been a religious man all
my life, and I don't pretend to say that I'm one now.  I'm not very
learned on this matter, and can't explain myself very well; but what
think you, lads, shall we give the whales a rest on Sundays?"

We all agreed to this at once, for the effect of the captain's speech
was great upon us.  It was not so much what he said, as the way in which
he said it.  He was by nature a bold, determined man, who never flinched
from danger or duty, and when we heard him talking in that way we could
scarcely believe our ears.

This was all that was said about the matter between us and the captain,
but we had many a hot discussion in the forecastle amongst ourselves
after that.  Some were in favour of the new move, and said, stoutly,
that the captain was a sensible fellow.  Others said he was becoming an
old wife, and that no luck would follow the ship.  In the course of
time, however, we found the benefit of the change in every way; and the
grumblers were silenced, because in spite of their wise shakings of the
head, we filled the ship with oil as full as she could hold, much sooner
than we had expected.

Shoregoing people have but little notion of the ease with which the
heart of a jack-tar is made to rejoice when he is out on a long voyage.
His pleasures and amusements are so few that he is thankful to make the
most of whatever is thrown in his way.  In the whale-fisheries, no
doubt, he has more than enough of excitement, but after a time he gets
used to this, and begins to long for a little variety--and of all the
pleasures that fall to his lot, that which delights him most is to have
a gam with another ship.

Now, a gam is the meeting of two or more whale-ships, their keeping
company for a time, and the exchanging of visits by the crews.  It is
neither more nor less than a jollification on the sea,--the inviting of
your friends to feast and make merry in your floating house.  There is
this difference, however, between a gam at sea and a party on land, that
your _friends_ on the ocean are men whom you perhaps never saw before,
and whom you will likely never meet again.  There is also another
difference--there are no ladies at a gam.  This is a great want, for man
is but a rugged creature when away from the refining influence of woman;
but, in the circumstances, of course, it can't be helped.

We had a gam one day, on this voyage, with a Yankee whale-ship, and a
first-rate gam it was, for, as the Yankee had gammed three days before
with another English ship, we got a lot of news second-hand; and, as we
had not seen a new face for many months, we felt towards those Yankees
like brothers, and swallowed all they had to tell us like men starving
for news.

It was on a fine calm morning, just after breakfast, that we fell in
with this ship.  We had seen no whales for a day or two, but we did not
mind that, for our hold was almost full of oil-barrels.  Tom Lokins and
I were leaning over the starboard bulwarks, watching the small fish that
every now and then darted through the clear-blue water like arrows, and
smoking our pipes in silence.  Tom looked uncommonly grave, and I knew
that he was having some deep and knowing thoughts of his own, which
would leak out in time.  All at once he took his pipe from his mouth and
stared earnestly at the horizon.

"Bob," said he, speaking very slowly, "if there ain't a ship right off
the starboard beam, I'm a Dutchman."

"You don't mean it!" said I, starting with a feeling of excitement.

Before another word could be uttered, the cry of "Sail ho!" came ringing
down from the mast-head.  Instantly the quiet of the morning was broken;
sleepers sprang up and rubbed their eyes, the men below rushed wildly up
the hatchway, the cook came tearing out of his own private den,
flourishing a soup-ladle in one hand and his tormentors in the other,
the steward came tumbling up with a lump of dough in his fist that he
had forgot to throw down in his haste, and the captain bolted up from
the cabin without his hat.

"Where away?" cried he, with more than his usual energy.

"Right off the starboard beam, sir."

"Square the yards!  Look alive, my hearties," was the next order; for
although the calm sea was like a sheet of glass, a light air, just
sufficient to fill our top-gallant sails, enabled us to creep through
the water.

"Hurrah!" shouted the men as we sprang to obey.

"What does she look like?" roared the captain.

"A big ship, sir, I think," replied the look-out, "but I can only just
make out the top of her main t-gallan' s'l."--(Sailors scorn to speak of
_top-gallant sails_).

Gradually, one by one, the white sails of the stranger rose up like
cloudlets out of the sea, and our hearts beat high with hope and
expectation as we beheld the towering canvas of a full-rigged ship rise
slowly into view.

"Show our colours," said the captain.

In a moment the Union Jack of Old England was waving at the mast-head in
the gentle breeze, and we watched anxiously for a reply.  The stranger
was polite; his colours flew up a moment after, and displayed the
Stripes and Stars of America.

"A Yankee!" exclaimed some of the men in a tone of slight
disappointment.

I may remark, that our disappointment arose simply from the fact that
there was no chance, as we supposed, of getting news from "home" out of
a ship that must have sailed last from America.  For the rest, we cared
not whether they were Yankees or Britons--they were men who could speak
the English tongue, that was enough for us.

"Never mind, boys," cried one, "we'll have a jolly gam; that's a fact."

"So we will," said another, "and I'll get news of my mad Irish cousin,
Terrence O'Flannagan, who went out to seek his fortin in Ameriky with
two shillin's and a broken knife in his pocket, and it's been said he's
got into a government situation o' some sort connected with the jails,--
whether as captain, or leftenant o' police, or turnkey, I'm not rightly
sure."

"More likely as a life-tenant of one of the cells," observed Bill Blunt,
laughing.

"Don't speak ill of a better man than yerself behind his back," retorted
the owner of the Irish cousin.

"Stand by to lower the jolly-boat," cried the captain.

"Ay, ay, sir."

"Lower away!"

In a few minutes we were leaping over the calm sea in the direction of
the strange ship, for the breeze had died down, and we were too eager to
meet with new faces, and to hear the sound of new voices, to wait for
the wind.

To our joy we found that the Yankee had had a gam (as I have already
said) with an English ship a few days before, so we returned to our
vessel loaded with old newspapers from England, having invited the
captain and crew of the Yankee to come aboard of us and spend the day.

While preparation was being made for the reception of our friends, we
got hold of two of the old newspapers, and Tom Lokins seized one, while
Bill Blunt got the other, and both men sat down on the windlass to
retail the news to a crowd of eager men who tried hard to listen to both
at once, and so could make nothing out of either.

"Hold hard, Tom Lokins," cried one.  "What's that you say about the
Emperor, Bill?"

"The Emperor of Roosia," said Bill Blunt, reading slowly, and with
difficulty, "is--stop a bit, messmates, wot _can_ this word be?--the
Emperor of Roosia is--"

"Blowed up with gunpowder, and shattered to a thousand pieces," said Tom
Lokins, raising his voice with excitement, as he read from _his_ paper
an account of the blowing up of a mountain fortress in India.

"Oh! come, I say, one at a time, if you please," cried a harpooner; "a
feller can't git a word of sense out of sich a jumble."

"Come, messmates," cried two or three voices, as Tom stopped suddenly,
and looked hard at the paper, "go ahead! wot have ye got there that
makes ye look as wise as an owl?  Has war been and broke out with the
French?"

"I do believe he's readin' the births, marriages, and deaths," said one
of the men, peeping over Tom's shoulder.

"Read 'em out, then, can't ye?" cried another.

"I say, Bill Blunt, I think this consarns _you_," cried Tom: "isn't your
sweetheart's name Susan Croft?"

"That's a fact," said Bill, looking up from his paper, "and who has got
a word to say agin the prettiest lass in all Liverpool?"

"Nobody's got a word to say against her," replied Tom; "but she's
married, that's all."

Bill Blunt leaped up as if he had been shot, and the blood rushed to his
face, as he seized the paper, and tried to find the place.

"Where is it, Tom? let me see it with my own two eyes.  Oh, here it is!"

The poor man's face grew paler and paler as he read the following
words:--

"Married at Liverpool, on the 5th inst, by the Reverend Charles Manson,
Edward Gordon, Esquire, to Susan, youngest daughter of Admiral Croft--"

A perfect roar of laughter drowned the remainder of the sentence.

"Well done, Bill Blunt--Mister Blunt, we'll have to call him hereafter,"
said Tom, with a grim smile; "I had no notion you thought so much o'
yourself as to aim at an admiral's daughter."

"All right, my hearties, chaff away!" said Bill, fetching a deep sigh of
relief, while a broad grin played on his weather-beaten visage.
"There's _two_ Susan Crofts, that's all; but I wouldn't give _my_ Susan
for all the Admirals' daughters that ever walked in shoe-leather."

"Hallo! here come the Yankees," cried the captain, coming on deck at
that moment.

Our newspapers were thrown down at once, and we prepared to receive our
guests, who, we could see, had just put off from their ship in two
boats.  But before they had come within a mile of us, their attention,
as well as ours, was riveted on a most extraordinary sight.

Not more than a hundred yards ahead of our ship, a whale came suddenly
to the surface of the water, seeming, by its wild motions, to be in a
state of terror.  It continued for some time to struggle, and lash the
whole sea around it into a white foam.

At once the boats were lowered from both ships, and we went after this
fish, but his motions were so violent, that we found it utterly
impossible to get near enough to throw a harpoon.  When we had
approached somewhat closely, we discovered that it had been attacked by
a killer fish, which was fully twenty feet long, and stuck to it like a
leech.  The monster's struggles were made in trying to shake itself free
of this tremendous enemy, but it could not accomplish this.  The killer
held him by the under jaw, and hung on there, while the whale threw
himself out of the water in his agony, with his great mouth open like a
huge cavern, and the blood flowing so fast from the wound that the sea
was dyed for a long distance round.  The killer fought like a bulldog.
It held on until the whale was exhausted, but they passed away from us
in such a confused struggle, that a harpoon could not be fixed for an
hour after we first saw them.  On this being done, the killer let go,
and the whale, being already half dead, was soon killed.

The Yankee boats were the first to come up with this fish, so the prize
belonged to them.  We were well pleased at this, as we could afford to
let them have it, seeing that we could scarcely have found room to stow
away the oil in our hold.  It was the Yankees' first fish, too, so they
were in great spirits about it, and towed it to their ship, singing
"Yankee-doodle" with all their might.

As they passed our boat the captain hailed them.

"I wish you joy of your first fish, sir," said he to the Yankee captain.

"Thank you, stranger.  I guess we're in luck, though it ain't a big one.
I say, what sort o' brute was that, that had hold of him?  Never seed
sich a crittur in all my life."

"He's a killer," said our captain.

"A killer!  Guess he just is, and no mistake: if we hadn't helped him,
he'd have done the job for himself!  What does he kill him for?"

"To eat him, but I'm told he only eats the tongue.  You'll not forget
that you've promised to gam with us to-night," cried our captain, as
they were about to commence pulling again.

"All right, stranger, one half will come to-night, before sundown;
t'other half to-morrow, if the calm holds.  Good-day.  Give way, lads."

The men dipped their oars, and resumed their song, while we pulled back
to our ship.  We did not offer to help them, because the fish was a
small one, and the distance they had to go not great.

It was near sunset when, according to promise, the Yankees came on
board, and spent a long evening with us.  They were a free,
open-hearted, boastful, conceited, good-humoured set of fellows, and a
jolly night we had of it in the forecastle, while the mates and captains
were enjoying themselves and spinning their yarns in the cabin.

Of course, we began with demands for home news, and, when we had pumped
out of them every drop they had, we began to sing songs and to spin
yarns.  And it was now that my friend Tom Lokins came out strong, and
went on at such a rate, that he quite won the hearts of our guests.  Tom
was not noisy, and he was slow in his talk, but he had the knack of
telling a good story; he never used a wrong word, or a word too many,
and, having a great deal of humour, men could not help listening when he
began to talk.

After this we had a dance, and here I became useful, being able to play
Scotch reels and Irish jigs on the fiddle.  Then we had songs and yarns
again.  Some could tell of furious fights with whales that made our
blood boil; others could talk of the green fields at home, until we
almost fancied we were boys again; and some could not tell stories at
all.  They had little to say, and that little they said ill; and I
noticed that many of those who were perfect bores would cry loudest to
be heard, though none of us wanted to hear them.  We used to quench such
fellows by calling loudly for a song with a rousing chorus.

It was not till the night was far spent, and the silver moon was sailing
through the starry sky, that the Yankees left us, and rowed away with a
parting cheer.



CHAPTER TEN.

RETURN HOME.

Six months after our "gam" with the Yankees Tom Lokins and I found
ourselves seated once more in the little garret beside my dear old
mother.

"Deary me, Robert, how changed ye are!"

"Changed, mother!  I should think so!  If you'd gone through all that
I've done and seen since we last sat together in this room you'd be
changed too."

"And have ye really seen the whales, my boy?" continued my mother,
stroking my face with her old hand.

"Seen them? ay, and killed them too--many of them."

"You've been in danger, my son," said my mother earnestly, "but God has
preserved you safe through it all."

"Ay, mother, He has preserved my life in the midst of many dangers,"
said I, "for which I am most thankful."

There was a short silence after this, during which my mother and I gazed
earnestly at each other, and Tom Lokins smoked his pipe and stared at
the fire.

"Robert, how big is a whale?" inquired my mother suddenly.

"How big? why, it's as big as a small ship, only it's longer, and not
quite so fat."

"Robert," replied my mother gravely, "ye didn't used to tell untruths;
ye must be jokin'."

"Joking, mother, I was never more in earnest in my life.  Why, I tell
you that I've seen, ay, and helped to cut up, whales that were more than
sixty feet long, with heads so big that their mouths could have taken in
a boat.  Why, mother, I declare to you that you could put this room into
a whale's mouth, and you and Tom and I could sit round this table and
take our tea upon his tongue quite comfortable.  Isn't that true, Tom?"

My mother looked at Tom, who removed his pipe, puffed a cloud of smoke,
and nodded his head twice very decidedly.

"Moreover," said I, "a whale is so big and strong, that it can knock a
boat right up into the air, and break in the sides of a ship.  One day a
whale fell right on top of one of our boats, and smashed it all to bits.
Now that's a real truth!"

Again my mother looked at Tom Lokins, and again that worthy man puffed
an immense cloud of smoke, and nodded his head more decidedly than
before.  Being anxious to put to flight all her doubts at once, he said
solemnly, "Old ooman, that's a fact!"

"Robert," said my mother, "tell me something about the whales."

Just as she said this the door opened, and in came the good old
gentleman with the nose like his cane-knob, and with as kind a heart as
ever beat in a human breast.  My mother had already told me that he came
to see her regularly once a week, ever since I went to sea, except in
summer, when he was away in the country, and that he had never allowed
her to want for anything.

I need scarcely say that there was a hearty meeting between us three,
and that we had much to say to each other.  But in the midst of it all
my mother turned to the old gentleman and said--

"Robert was just going to tell me something about his adventures with
the whales."

"That's capital!" cried the old gentleman, rubbing his hands.  "Come,
Bob, my boy, let's hear about 'em."

Being thus invited, I consented to spin them a yarn.  The old gentleman
settled himself in his chair, my mother smoothed her apron, folded her
hands, and looked meekly into my face.  Tom Lokins filled his pipe,
stretched out his foot to poke the fire with the toe of his shoe, and
began to smoke like a steam-engine; then I cleared my throat and began
my tale, and before I had done talking that night, I had told them all
that I have told in this little book, almost word for word.

Thus ended my first voyage to the South Seas.  Many and many a trip have
I made since then, and many a wonderful sight have I seen, both in the
south and in the north.  But if I were to write an account of all my
adventures, my little book would grow into a big one; I must therefore
come to a close.

The profits of this voyage were so great, that I was enabled to place my
mother in a position of comfort for the rest of her life, which, alas!
was very short.  She died about six months after my return.  I nursed
her to the end, and, when I laid her dear head in the grave, my heart
seemed to die within me, for I felt that I had lost one of God's most
precious gifts--an honest, gentle, pious mother.

I'm getting to be a old man now, but I am comfortable and happy, and as
I have more than enough of this world's goods, and no family to care
for, my chief occupation is to look after the poor, and particularly the
old women who live in my neighbourhood.  After the work of the day is
done, I generally go and spend the evening with Tom Lokins, who lives
near by, and is stout and hearty still; or he comes and spends it with
me, and, while we smoke our pipes together, we often fall to talking
about those stirring days when, in the strength and hope of youth, we
sailed together to the South Seas, and took to--_Fighting the Whales_.

THE END.





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