Swept Out to Sea Part 15

"Those are all great tales," quoth Tom Anderly, when we had marveled over these lucky voyages. "But how about the brig Emeline of New Bedford? She sailed on July 11, 1841 and in twenty-six months she returned home with how much ile d'you suppose?"

Ben and I gave it up. Some enormous sum, we supposed, was realized.

"Yah!" said Tom. "A fat lot. Twenty-six months and ten barrels of ile, and her skipper killed by a whale."

"Oh, now that you're on the hard luck tack," quoth Ben, "there was the Junior, of New Bedford. I've heard my uncle tell of her. Out a year and two months and put back to port _clean_--and the crew plumb disgusted.

Could you blame 'em?"

This conversation went on between our watches while the three sperm whales were being butchered. There was a peculiarity about these cachelots that I failed to mention. We butchered them in a different manner than we did the Greenland, or right, whale. The cachelot has no baleen but it furnishes spermaceti. A large, nearly triangular cavity in the right side of the head, called the "case" (sometimes spermaceti is called "case oil") is lined with a beautiful, silver-like membrane, and covered by a thick layer of muscular fibres. This cavity contains a secretion of an oily fluid which, after the death of the animal, congeals into a granulated yellowish-hued substance. Our whale, the first of the school killed by the second mate's boat--had in its case a tun, or ten barrels, of spermaceti!

While the trying-out operations were under way we lost, of course, that school of sperms; but we drifted some miles into the south, and as soon as Captain Rogers could get canvas on her, we made a splendid run for two days west of south and so caught up either with that same school, or with another herd of cachelots.

I had thus far seen some of the sport, a good deal of the hard work, and some of the uncertainties of the whaleman's life; now I came upon a streak of peril the remembrance of which is not likely to be sponged from my mind as long as I possess any memory at all.

It was at daybreak the lookout hailed the deck with "Ah-h blows! And spouts! All about us, sir!"

It was true. We had run into the midst of the school of whales. Captain Rogers being called by Mr. Robbins, took a look around the sea-line, cast a shrewd look at the heavens, went and squinted at the gla.s.s, and then ordered the canvas reefed down and all hands to breakfast. The prospect, of both weather and whales, was for a good kill.

The healthy rivalry between the boats was now manifest. Captain Rogers ordered all six out, leaving but two men aboard the bark. They could just manage to steer her under the riding sail. Our boat was off as soon as any and we pulled steadily for the whale we had chosen as our prize.

We had brought in the biggest one before and we hoped to do as well on this occasion.

But we couldn't pick the biggest this time, for as we shot through the rippling waves, aiming for a huge bull that rolled on the surface, up popped a young female, with a calf, right in our course.

"Look out for her!" quoth old Tom Anderly. "She'll be ugly, sir--with that kid beside her. Better think twice of it, Mr. Gibson."

"Think we're going to have the other boats give us the yah-yah because we pa.s.s up a fifty-foot she whale, eh?" demanded the young second officer. "Just step forward here, old timer, and see if you can stick your fork into her."

After all, the mate's word was law even to the old boat-steerer. They quickly changed places and Tom took up the iron. The calf was playing on the far side of its mother, and so we could easily come up upon the nigh side without being observed.

In a few moments Tom had her pinned. Then there was the Old Harry to pay and no pitch hot, as the sailors say!

The other two whales I had seen killed merely thought of running away from the thing that had hurt them. But the one we now were fast in had her baby to care for. She set off running, but would not swim faster than the calf could travel. We did not put out the full length of one line.

"Haul in! haul in!" cried Ben Gibson, excitedly. "I'll get a lance in her."

"You be careful, sir," whispered old Tom, from the stern again, to which he had gone after throwing the iron. "There ain't nothing wickeder than a she whale with a sucking calf, when she's roused."

We had drawn in rather close and could see that the calf was falling behind. The mother noticed it as well. She feared the thing that had stung her; but, mother-like, she clung to her little one. She swerved around and the line fell slack.

"Look out, now, sir!" cried Tom Anderly again. "She's mad, and she's scared, and she's looking for us. If she once gits her tail under our bottom its good-bye Jo for all hands--and the water's mighty wet today."

Almost as he ceased speaking the wicked eye of the great creature blinked at the boat, and she came rushing down upon it. Tom threw himself upon the great steering oar, while Ben shouted:

"Pull! Pull, you lubbers! Do you want to be swamped by the critter?"

We bent our backs to the struggle and the whaleboat shot ahead; but the maddened cow-whale came on, as big as a brick warehouse, and bent on running us under!

CHAPTER XVII

IN WHICH I COME VERY NEAR GOING OUT OF THE STORY

Our boat escaped the collision with the mad whale on her first attack.

She rushed by us like a steamer, throwing up a wave from her jaws and just "humping herself." Old Tom swerved us about swiftly in her wake and we came right upon the calf.

"By jinks! I'll soak you one for luck, anyway!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the angry second mate, and he up with his lance-gun and put a shot into the little fellow.

"Now, sir, we'll have trouble with her," grunted Tom, grimly.

"She's coming back!" stroke oar shouted.

It seemed as though the whale knew her young had been killed. She whirled in the sea and rushed down upon the drifting calf, the blood from which tinged the sea for yards around its carca.s.s. It was really pitiful to see her stop at it, and seemingly caress it, drawing it toward her with her huge fin that it might suckle. But we were alive to the chance of getting near enough to lance her, and under whispered instructions rowed in.

Mr. Gibson had risen and aimed the gun and was about to fire when the cow-whale seemed to suddenly understand her loss and her own danger.

With a mighty flirt of her tail (which same came near to swamping our boat) she "sounded," as it is called.

Her head went down and her great tail flirted in the air. Mr. Gibson went over backward, exploding the gun and sending the bomb-lance into the air. The whale was out of sight in a flash and the line began to run over the bow with a speed that made the woodwork smoke.

I bent on another line and then dipped up some water in the bailer to throw upon the smoking gunwale. It was at this moment that I came as close to death as ever whaleman experienced. A lurch of the boat canted me and I threw out my left hand to prevent myself from diving overboard.

It was a most unfortunate gesture. In some way that uncoiling line, which moved so fast one could scarcely follow it with the eye, wrapped about my arm below the elbow and--like a flash--I was jerked out of the boat and shot beneath the surface of the sea!

I would like to tell of this terrible incident as it seemed to my mates in the whaleboat; I presume they were aghast at my flight over the bow and disappearance. For a man to be carried overboard by the harpoon line, and entangled in that line, is not an unknown incident in the annals of whale-fishing. But only one person ever went through the experience and lived to tell of it before my time--or so I am informed.

This was Captain Parker of the American whaler West Wind.

I don't know how the matter seemed to Captain Parker; I can only relate my own sensations. And, believe me, they were queer enough. I shot down after the sounding whale with a rapidity that seemed to deprive me of the ordinary powers of thought or imagination. My only conscious idea was that I was a dead boy if I could not cut that line!

I was rushing down into the depths head-foremost--and with the swiftness, it seemed, of a reversed skyrocket! I thought my arm would be torn from its socket, so great was the resistance of the water.

Fortunately I had been clothed in a thick jacket, and that jacket-sleeve saved my arm from being mutilated.

I was traveling so fast behind the sounding whale that I could not move my right arm from my side. It seemed glued there, so closely was it pressed to my body by the force of the water. The pressure on my brain became frightful, too, and thunder roared in my ears--or, so it seemed.

For an instant I opened my eyes. It appeared that a stream of blasting flame pa.s.sed before them. I was blinded.

But, providentially, I was composed. I knew what I was about--rather, what was happening to me--each moment. I struggled to reach the knife I wore at my belt; but every second I grew weaker. The compression around my chest was like that of a tightening band of iron.

Of course, only seconds elapsed; but it seemed a very, very long time.

Would the whale ever reach the bottom? Would the line ever sag? Far gone as I was, my brain remained perfectly clear and I was ready to make use of the least fortunate incident in my favor.

Then it came--the slackening of the line. I drove forward with a mighty kick of my feet--a last gasp of strength. My fingers closed on the handle of the gully, I ripped it out of its sheath, and slashed the keen blade across the line.

I cut my wrist a bit in so doing. Luckily, I cut ahead of the arm entangled in the line; it was more by good luck than good management.

My remembrances after that are confused. I know I shot upward from the dreadful depths, the human body being so much more buoyant than the salt sea. I lost consciousness slowly. All I finally remember was an enlarging spot of light toward which I mounted but which seemed to be miles and miles away!

I was suffocating. A gurgling spasm seized upon me. Light, and sense, and all were quenched suddenly. Life was slipping from my grasp.