Dick Sands, the Boy Captain Part 6

Sometimes white petrels would congregate in considerable numbers near the schooner; and sometimes petrels of another species, with brown borders on their wings, would come in sight; now there would be flocks of damiers skimming the water; and now groups of penguins, whose clumsy gait appears so ludicrous on sh.o.r.e; but, as Captain Hull pointed out, when their stumpy wings were employed as fins, they were a match for the most rapid of fish, so that sailors have often mistaken them for bonitos.

High over head, huge albatrosses, their outspread wings measuring ten feet from tip to tip, would soar aloft, thence to swoop down towards the deep, into which they plunged their beaks in search of food. Such incidents and scenes as these were infinite in their variety, and it was accordingly only for minds that were obtuse to the charms of nature that the voyage could be monotonous.

On the day the wind shifted, Mrs. Weldon was walking up and down on the "Pilgrim's" stern, when her attention was attracted by what seemed to her a strange phenomenon. All of a sudden, far as the eye could reach, the sea had a.s.sumed a reddish hue, as if it were tinged with blood.

Both d.i.c.k and Jack were standing close behind her, and she cried,-

"Look, d.i.c.k, look! the sea is all red. Is it a sea-weed that is making the water so strange a colour?

"No," answered d.i.c.k, "it is not a weed; it is what the sailors call whales' food; it is formed, I believe, of innumerable myriads of minute crustacea."

"Crustacea they may be," replied Mrs. Weldon, "but they must be so small that they are mere insects. Cousin Benedict no doubt will like to see them."

She called aloud,-

"Benedict! Benedict! come here! we have a sight here to interest you."

The amateur naturalist slowly emerged from his cabin followed by Captain Hull.

"Ah! yes, I see!" said the captain; "whales' food; just the opportunity for you, Mr. Benedict; a chance not to be thrown away for studying one of the most curious of the crustacea."

"Nonsense!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Benedict contemptuously; "utter nonsense!"

"Why? what do you mean, Mr. Benedict?" retorted the captain; "surely you, as an entomologist, must know that I am right in my conviction that these crustacea belong to one of the six cla.s.ses of the articulata."

The disdain of Cousin Benedict was expressed by a repeated sneer.

"Are you not aware, sir, that my researches as an entomologist are confined entirely to the hexapoda?"

Captain Hull, unable to repress a smile, only answered good-humouredly,-

"I see, sir, your tastes do not lie in the same direction as those of the whale."

And turning to Mrs. Weldon, he continued,-

"To whalemen, madam, this is a sight that speaks for itself. It is a token that we ought to lose no time in getting out our lines and looking to the state of our harpoons. There is game not far away."

Jack gave vent to his astonishment.

"Do you mean that great creatures like whales feed on such tiny things as these?"

"Yes, my boy," said the captain; "and I daresay they are as nice to them as semolina and ground rice are to you.

When a whale gets into the middle of them he has nothing to do but to open his jaws, and, in a minute, hundreds of thousands of these minute creatures are inside the fringe or whalebone around his palate, and he is sure of a good mouthful."

"So you see, Jack," said d.i.c.k, "the whale gets his shrimps without the trouble of sh.e.l.ling them."

"And when he has just closed his snappers is the very time to give him a good taste of the harpoon," added Captain Hull.

The words had hardly escaped the captain's lips when a shout from one of the sailors announced,-

"A whale to larboard!"

"There's the whale!" repeated the captain. All his professional instincts were aroused in an instant, and he hurried to the bow, followed in eager curiosity by all the stern pa.s.sengers.

Even Cousin Benedict loitered up in the rear, constrained, in spite of himself, to take a share in the general interest.

There was no doubt about the matter. Four miles or so to windward an unusual commotion in the water betokened to experienced eyes the presence of a whale; but the distance was too great to permit a reasonable conjecture to be formed as to which species of those mammifers the creature belonged.

Three distinct species are familiarly known. First there is the Right whale, which is ordinarily sought for in the northern fisheries. The average length of this cetacean is sixty feet, though it has been known to attain the length of eighty feet. It has no dorsal fin, and beneath its skin is a thick layer of blubber. One of these monsters alone will yield as much as a hundred barrels of oil.

Then there is the Hump-back, a typical representative of the species "balaenoptera," a definition which may at first sight appear to possess an interest for an entomologist, but which really refers to two white dorsal fins, each half as wide as the body, resembling a pair of wings, and in their formation similar to those of the flying-fish. It must be owned, however, that a flying whale would decidedly be a rara avis.

Lastly, there is the Jubarte, commonly known as the Finback. It is provided with a dorsal fin, and in length not unfrequently is a match for the gigantic Right whale.

While it was impossible to decide to which of the three species the whale in the distance really belonged, the general impression inclined to the belief that it was a jubarte.

With longing eyes Captain Hull and his crew gazed at the object of general attraction. Just as irresistibly as it is said a clockmaker is drawn on to examine the mechanism of every clock which chance may throw in his way, so is a whaleman ever anxious to plunge his harpoon into any whale that he can get within his reach. The larger the game the more keen the excitement; and no elephant-hunter's eagerness ever surpa.s.ses the zest of the whale-fisher when once started in pursuit of the prey.

To the crew the sight of the whale was the opening of an unexpected opportunity, and no wonder they were fired with the burning hope that even now they might do something to supply the deficiency of their meagre haul throughout the season.

Far away as the creature still was, the captain's practised eye soon enabled him to detect various indications that satisfied him as to its true species. Amongst other things that arrested his attention, he observed a column of water and vapour ejected from the nostrils. "It isn't a right whale," he said; "if so, its spout would be smaller and it would rise higher in the air. And I do not think it is a hump-back. I cannot hear the hump-back's roar. d.i.c.k, tell me, what do you think about it?"

With a critical eye d.i.c.k Sands looked long and steadily at the spout.

"It blows out water, sir," said the apprentice, "water, as well as vapour. I should think it is a finback. But it must be a rare large one."

"Seventy feet, at least!" rejoined the captain, flushing with his enthusiasm.

"What a big fellow!" said Jack, catching the excitement of his elders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "What a big fellow!"]

"Ah, Jack, my boy," chuckled the captain, "the whale little thinks who are watching him enjoy his breakfast!"

"Yes," said the boatswain; "a dozen such gentlemen as that would freight a craft twice the size of ours; but this one, if only we can get him, will go a good way towards filling our empty barrels."

"Rather rough work, you know," said d.i.c.k, "to attack a finback!"

"You are right, d.i.c.k," answered the captain; "the boat has yet to be built which is strong enough to resist the flap of a jubarte's tail."

"But the profit is worth the risk, captain, isn't it?"

"You are right again, d.i.c.k," replied Captain Hull, and as he spoke, he clambered on to the bowsprit in order that he might get a better view of the whale.

The crew were as eager as their captain. Mounted on the fore-shrouds, they scanned the movements of their coveted prey in the distance, freely descanting upon the profit to be made out of a good finback and declaring that it would be a thousand pities if this chance of filling the casks below should be permitted to be lost.

Captain Hull was perplexed. He bit his nails and knitted his brow.