CHAPTER VII
THE GLACIER
Now that the excitement was over and the boys had a chance to look about, they searched the sea for Mr. Kemp. But nowhere was he to be seen. Then their glance turned towards the schooner, and Tom uttered a frightened cry.
“The Narwhal’s gone!”
Cap’n Pem turned from where he was directing the men as they labored to get a fluke chain about the dead whale’s tail, shaded his eyes and swept a swift glance around the horizon. “Reckon she are,” he remarked quite undisturbed. “Get a waif up, Nate,” he continued, addressing the boat steerer. “Swan if I know whar she be. An’ looks like Kemp’s hull down, too.”
“But what will we do?” cried Jim. “How can we get to the Narwhal?”
“Won’t,” replied the old whaleman, once more bending to his work. “Let the schooner come to us. Reckon the skipper hain’t los’ track o’ us.”
“Ye see,” explained the boat steerer as he fastened a red flag to the mast and, with two of the men to help him, stepped the spar, “folks ’board the schooner can see us a heap farther than we kin see them. They’ll be havin’ a lookout to the to’gallan’ crosstrees an’ keep track o’ where we be.”
“Oh, I understand,” said Tom. “But say, Nate, why did you go for the head of that whale? When we were on the Hector they were always careful to go on them from the tail end.”
“Them was sparm whales,” replied the boat steerer. “A sparm whale kin see for’rard but not aft, an’ a right whale or bowhead kin see aft an’ not for’rard. ’Sides, a sparm fights mos’ly with his jaw an’ a right or a bowhead fights with his flukes. ‘Bewar’ o’ a sparm’s jaws an’ a right whale’s flukes,’ is a ol’ whalin’ motter.”