Swept Out to Sea Part 10

The sound came from this cloud. Before it the sea itself turned white.

Far above, the upper reaches of the rolling mist seemed to writhe as though in travail of some great phenomenon. And it was so! Out of this ma.s.s of vapor I saw born within the hour the most remarkable of all sea-spells.

But at first my attention was divided between the tornado coming up from the south and the bark approaching from the north. Not at once did the favoring wind leave the craft. Where the dead whale lay seemed to be a belt of calm between the bark and the coming tornado. And this craft in which my hope was set was really a bark, by the way; I do not use the word poetically. Her fore and mainmasts were square rigged while her mizzen mast was rigged fore and aft like my little Wavecrest.

As I watched her I saw that her navigator had espied the coming tempest from the south and the crew began to swarm among the sails. She still came on at a spanking pace; but her canvas was reefed down rapidly until there was nothing left but the foretopsail, flying jib and the spanker.

Soon these began to shake and then her fair wind left her entirely. She had reached the belt of calm in which the dead whale and my sloop still lay.

In my ears the savage voice from the cloud to the south'ard was now a roar. The remaining canvas on the bark was reefed down. She lay waiting for the tempest. I turned to descend from my rather slippery situation.

I preferred to be in the sloop when the tempest struck us, for possibly I would be obliged to cast off from the dead mammal.

But before I could get off the whale the writhing cloud changed its appearance--and changed so rapidly that I was held spellbound. It was sweeping over the seas so close, it seemed that the topmasts of the bark could not have cleared it. Now whirling tongues of cloud shot downward while dozens of spiral columns of water leaped up to meet these gyrating tongues. Thus sucked up by the whirling cloud the waterspouts were formed, and dozens of them swept on across the sea beneath the hovering cloud.

As the cloud advanced the wind which accompanied it beat the waves flat.

But they boiled about the waterspouts and the roaring sound increased rapidly. The heavens above and to the north and east grew dark. The rising sun seemed snuffed out. A vivid glare which was neither sunlight nor starlight accompanied the tempest as it swept on.

I trembled at the sight and as the seconds pa.s.sed I grew more terrified--and for good reason. What would happen to me if any of those whirling columns of water and mist struck the dead whale? If they burst upon the drifting mammal where would I be? What would happen to the Wavecrest?

And then quite suddenly there came a change in the on-rushing tornado.

Amid thunderous reports--like nothing so much as the explosions of great guns--the dozens of small spouts ran together, or were quenched as it might be, in one huge, whirling column of water which, swept on by the wind, charged down upon me as though aiming at my particular destruction.

I fell upon my knees and clung with both hands to the slot I had cut in the whale's blubber in to which to thrust the oar. I dug my fingers into the greasy flesh and hung on for dear life. I actually expected that the whale--and of course my sloop--would be overwhelmed.

The waterspout, traveling with the speed of an express train, bore down upon me. With it came the wind, roaring deafeningly. I lost all other sound, with such enormous confusion the tornado swept upon me. The whale rolled as though it had come to sudden life again.

Over and over it canted. I know my sloop was lifted completely out of the sea. The waterspout whirled past--within three cable-lengths of the dead leviathan,--and the tempest shrieked after. The whale rolled back.

I slid down the curve of the carca.s.s and dropped into my plunging sloop.

I feared to remain longer near the dead whale, but cast off both at bow and stern, and let the sea carry me some yards from the heaving, rolling carca.s.s.

And then I could once more see the waterspout. It was still careening over the sea, its general direction being nor'west; but it whirled so that it was quite impossible to be sure of its exact direction.

However, of one thing I was confident. The sailing vessel which I had so joyfully discovered an hour ago, lay in the track of the waterspout. She lay still becalmed and if the spout threatened to board her, there would be no possible chance of the vessel's escaping destruction.

CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH I FIND MYSELF BOUND FOR SOUTHERN SEAS

My little sloop pitched so abominably that I could not stand upright, but fell into her sternsheets and there clung to the tiller as she swept along in the wake of the tornado. The waves did not break about the Wavecrest, for she was still within the charmed circle of oily calmness supplied by the dead whale. At some distance, however, the waves were tossed about most tempestuously.

I could see the bark from bow to stern, for she lay broadside to me.

When the draught from the south first struck her she went over slowly almost upon her beam-ends; but righted majestically and her helm being put over she slewed around so as to take the gale bow-on.

She mounted the first wave splendidly and I saw her crew gathered forward in her bows. They seemed to be at work on something and there was a vast amount of running back and forth upon her deck. Meanwhile the waterspout, whirling like a dervish, bore down upon the bark.

The great column of water pa.s.sed between me and the bark, then swung around and rushed down upon the craft in a way to threaten its complete extinction. I expected nothing more than to see the bark borne down and sunk under the weight of the bursting waterspout.

But when it was still several cable-lengths from the bark I saw the group upon her forward deck separate, and a long cannon was revealed.

Its muzzle was slewed a little over the port bow and the next instant it spoke. The explosion sharply echoed across the sea, audible to my ears despite the huge roaring of the waterspout.

The column of water, rushing down upon the bark, was cut in twain by the ball from the gun. The connection 'twixt the whirling cloud and the whirling water was actually severed by it. Had the spout swept aboard the bark the great ship would have scarcely escaped complete wreck. As it was, the revolving water poured down into the ocean with the noise of a cascade, beating the sea to foam for yards and yards around, but without doing the slightest damage either to the bark, or to my little sloop.

The tornado tore into the north, smaller spouts leaping up and twirling in their mad dance, but none forming the threatening aspect of that which the bark's gun had burst. In half an hour the sun was out and I dared spread a whisp of sail and ran down to hail the bark.

I saw the crew crowding to the rail. There was a large number for even a sailing vessel of these times, and I more than half suspected the nature of her business before a rope ladder was let down to me and I scrambled up the tall side of the craft with the bight of my sloop's painter over my shoulder and saw the "nests" of boats stowed amidships.

"I say, young fellow!" was the greeting I received from a smart looking youngster--not much older than myself--who welcomed me at the rail "is that your whale?"

"If 'findings is keepings' it is surely mine," I said. "But I didn't kill it, and now I've got a leg over your rail I'll give you all my t.i.tle and share in the beast."

"Good luck, boys!" rumbled a bewhiskered old barnacle who stood behind the young officer of the bark, "We've struck ile before we're a week out o' Bedford."

As I say, without these words I could have been sure that the bark was a whaler. She was the Scarboro Captain Hiram Rogers, and just beginning her voyage for the South Seas. The Greenland, or right whale, is no longer plentiful, but the cachelot and other species have become wonderfully common of late years. This fact has drawn capital to the business of whaling once more, and although steam has for the most part supplanted sails, and the gun and explosive bullet serve the office formerly held by the harpoon and the lance, more than a few of the old whale-fishing fleet have come into their own again.

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

The young fellow who had hailed me was Second Mate Gibson, nephew of the captain and, I very soon discovered, possessed of little more practical knowledge of sea-going and seamanship than myself. But he was a brisk, cheerful, educated fellow and being merely the captain's lieutenant over the watch got along very well. He expected to study navigation with his uncle and be turned off a full-fledged mate, with a certificate, on his return from this whaling voyage.

However, these facts I learned later. Just now I was only anxious to know what was to be done with me, and if there was a likelihood of the captain of the Scarboro touching at any port from which I might make a quick pa.s.sage home. This last was the uppermost thought in my mind when I followed Ben Gibson below to see the captain.

Captain Rogers was a lanky man with a sandy beard and a quiet blue eye.

He did not look as though he ever had, or ever could, be hurried or disturbed. Had I been a Triton that had just come abroad I reckon he would have eyed me quite as calmly and listened as tranquilly to my story. But Gibson was so impatient (as I could easily see) that I made the story brief. He burst out with:

"Captain Rogers! aren't we going to get that whale? She's delivered into our hand, as ye might say. The men are eager for it, sir, but you haven't given orders to change our course."

"And I'm not likely to, Bennie," returned his uncle.

"But it's a waste of oil!" exclaimed the young fellow.

"And it would be a waste of time for us to stop for one miserable whale when we don't expect to break out our boats until we're well below the equator. We'd just make a mess of the old hooker and have to clean her up again."

Gibson was disappointed, and would have urged his desire further, but Captain Rogers turned to me:

"If we meet a homeward bound sailing vessel in good weather I'll put you aboard. Steamships won't stop for you. If you want to join my crew--you're a husky looking youngster--I'll fit you out and lot you a greenhorn's share. Best I can do for you. Is your sloop any good?"

"She's not started a plank, sir," I declared.

"Pa.s.s the word for the carpenter to take his gang and get the stick out of her, and hoist her aboard," Captain Rogers said to Gibson. "Then take this lad to breakfast and see that he gets a good one."

He turned me off rather cavalierly I thought. Of course, my situation appealed more strongly to me than it was likely to appeal to anybody else. But Captain Rogers did not seem to consider my being carried away, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, into the Southern Seas, and on a voyage likely to last anywhere from eighteen months to three years--for the Scarboro was just out of New Bedford, as has been stated--the captain did not seem to consider, I say, what my state of mind might be. Of course, I was thankful that I had been picked up; yet if the weather settled I might have safely made my way back home in the Wavecrest. And it was easy to see that the skipper of the Scarboro considered the sloop his property in return for taking me aboard.

The lanky captain of the whale ship was not a person to argue with. I knew it would be useless to bandy words with him. Even his nephew plainly showed that he considered it wise to drop the matter of the dead whale right there and then--before the captain at least. He grumbled a bit about the loss of this first chance for oil when we went to breakfast, however. Apropos of which, and while we discussed the good breakfast that was put before us, Ben Gibson repeated for my delectation the famous whaling story--a cla.s.sic in its way--wherein the Yankee skipper and the Yankee mate differ as to the advisability of chasing a cachelot. Some version of this tale is known to every whaler and I preserve Ben's story, as he told it, imitating the Down East tw.a.n.g as well as I may:

"Forty-two days aout, an' not a drop o' ile in the tanks. I went for'ard. The lookaout he hailed. 'On deck, sir,' says he, 'thar she blaows.'

"I went aft. 'Cap'n Symes,' says I, 'thar she blaows; shall I lower?'