Part 9 (1/2)
The adventures of one unlucky s.h.i.+p, the _Connemara,_ on a single whaling cruise on the coast of Peru. The first slight signs of a gale, seen only by the careful skipper. The hasty preparations for it: all hands to shorten sail; then the moaning of the wind high up in the sky. All hands to reef sail now--the whirl and whoo of the gale as it came down on them. The s.h.i.+p careening as it caught her, the speaking-trumpet--the captain howling his orders through it amid the tumult.
The floating icebergs--the s.h.i.+p among them, picking her way in and out a hundred deaths. Baffled by the unyielding wind off Cape Horn, sailing six weeks on opposite tacks, and ending just where they began, weather-bound in sight of the gloomy Horn. Then the terrors of a land-locked bay, and a lee sh.o.r.e; the s.h.i.+p tacking, writhing, twisting, to weather one jutting promontory; the sea and safety is on the other side of it; land and destruction on this--the attempt, the hope, the failure; then the stout-hearted, skillful captain would try one rare maneuver to save the s.h.i.+p, cargo, and crew. He would club-haul her, ”and if that fails, my lads, there is nothing but up mainsail, up helm, run her slap ash.o.r.e, and lay her bones on the softest bit of rock we can pick.”
Long ere this the poor s.h.i.+p had become a live thing to all these four, and they hung breathless on her fate.
Then he showed how a s.h.i.+p is club-hauled, and told how n.o.bly the old _Connemara_ behaved (s.h.i.+ps are apt to when well handled--double-barreled guns ditto), and how the wind blew fiercer, and the rocks seemed to open their mouths for her, and how she hung and vibrated between safety and destruction, and at last how she writhed and slipped between Death's lips, yet escaped his teeth, and tossed and tumbled in triumph on the great but fair fighting sea; and how they got at last to the whaling ground, and could not find a whale for many a weary day, and the novices said: ”They were all killed before we sailed;” and how, as uncommon ill luck is apt to be balanced by uncommon good luck, one fine evening they fell in with a whole shoal of whales at play, jumping clean into the air sixty feet long, and coming down each with a splash like thunder; even the captain had never seen such a game; and how the crew were for lowering the boats and going at them, but the captain would not let them; a hundred playful mountains of fish, the smallest weighing thirty ton, flopping down happy-go-lucky, he did not like the looks of it.
”The boat will be at the mercy of chance among all those tails, and we are not lucky enough to throw at random. No; since the beggars have taken to dancing, for a change, let them dance all night; to-morrow they shall pay the piper.” How, at peep of day, the man at the mast-head saw ten whales about two leagues off on the weather-bow; how the s.h.i.+p tacked and stood toward them; how she weathered on one of monstrous size, and how he and the other youngsters were mad to lower the boat and go after it, and how the captain said: ”Ye lubbers, can't ye see that is a right whale, and not worth a b.u.t.ton? Look here away over the quarter at this whale. See how low she spouts. She is a sperm whale, and worth seven hundred pounds if she was only dead and towed alongside.”
”'That she shall be in about a minute,' cried one; and, indeed, we were all in a flame; the boat was lowered, and didn't I wors.h.i.+p the skipper when he told me off to be one of her crew!
”I was that eager to be in at that whale's death, I didn't recollect there might be smaller brutes in danger.
”Just before the oars fell into the water, the skipper looked down over the bulwarks, and says he to one of us that had charge of the rope that is fast to the boat at one end and to the harpoon at the other, 'Now, Jack you are a new hand; mind all I told you last night, or your mother will see me come ash.o.r.e without you, and that will vex her; and, my lads, remember, if there is a single lubberly hitch in that line, you will none of you come up the s.h.i.+p's side again.'
”'All right, captain,' says Jack, and we pulled off singing,
”'And spring to your oars, and, make your boat fly, And when you come near her beware of her eye,'
till the c.o.xswain bade us hold our lubberly tongues, and not frighten the whales; however, we soon found we wanted all our breath for our work, and more too.” Then David painted the furious race after the whale, and how the boat gradually gained, and how at last, as he was grinding his teeth and pulling like mad, he heard a sound ahead like a hundred elephants wallowing; and now he hoped to see the harpooner leave his oar, and rise and fling his weapon; ”but that instant, up flukes, a tower of fish was seen a moment in the air, with a tail-fin at the top of it just about the size of this room we are sitting in, ladies, and down the whale sounded; then it was pull on again in her wake, according as she headed in sounding; pull for the dear life; and after a while the oarsmen saw the steerman's eyes, prying over the sea, turn like hot coals. The men caught fire at this, and put their very backbones into each stroke, and the boat skimmed and flew.
Suddenly the steersman cried out fiercely, 'Stand up, harpoon! Up rose the harpooner, _his_ eye like a hot coal now. The men saw nothing; they must pull fiercer than ever. The harpooner balanced his iron, swayed his body lightly, and the harpoon hissed from him. A soft thud--then a heaving of the water all round, a slap that sounded like a church tower falling flat upon an acre of boards, and drenched, and blinded, and half smothered us all in spray, and at the same moment away whirled the boat, dancing and kicking in the whale's foaming, bubbling wake, and we holding on like grim death by the thwarts, not to be spun out into the sea.”
”Delightful!” cried Miss Fountain; ”the waves bounded beneath you like a steed that knows its rider. Pray continue.”
”Yes, Miss Fountain. Now of course you can see that, if the line ran out too easy, the whale would leave us astern altogether, and if it jammed or ran too hard, she would tow us under water.”
”Of course we see,” said Eve, ironically; ”we understand everything by instinct. Hang explanations when I'm excited; go ahead, do!”
”Then I won't explain how it is or why it is, but I'll just let you know that two or three hundred fathom of line are pa.s.sed round the boat from stem to stern and back, and carried in and out between the oarsmen as they sit. Well, it was all new to me then; but when the boat began jumping and rocking, and the line began whizzing in and out, and screaming and smoking like--there now, fancy a machine, a complicated one, made of poisonous serpents, the steam on, and you sitting in the middle of the works, with not an inch to spare, on the crankest, rockingest, jumpingest, b.u.mpingest, rollingest cradle that ever--”
”David!” said Eve, solemnly.
”Hallo!” sang out David.
”Don't!”
”Oh, yes, do!” cried Lucy, slightly clasping her hands.
”If this little black ugly line was to catch you, it would spin you out of the boat like a shuttlec.o.c.k; if it held you, it would cut you in two, or hang you to death, or drown you all at one time; and if it got jammed against anything alive or dead that could stand the strain, it would take the boat and crew down to the coral before you could wink twice.”
”Oh, dear!” said Lucy; ”then I don't think I like it now; it is too terrible. Pray go on, Mr.--Mr.--”
”Well, Miss Fountain, when a novice like me saw this black serpent twisting and twirling, and smoking and hissing in and out among us, I remembered the skipper's words, and I hailed Jack--it was he had laid the line--he was in the bow.
”'Jack,' said I.
”'Hallo!” said he.
”'For G.o.d's sake, are there any hitches in the line?' said I.