“There is a deal of superstition that hangs about the sea; and a whaler has her share of it, and more. But it is never allowed to interfere with the work at hand. And so if the men wished Eric off the ship, they kept their wishes to themselves; and if they were reluctant to serve in his boat, they hid this reluctance. For Eric was a quick man, quick to anger, with a quick fist to him. In his place, I should have moved tremblingly, fearful of a blow from behind during the watch on deck at night. But Eric strode fearlessly about the ship; and none laid hand to him.
“The sea is a grim thing, and inscrutable. No man can look out across its smooth bosom day and day, and remember the vast multitude of lives which go their way beneath that smiling surface, without a sense of mystery and wonder of it all. The sea in a storm may be terrible and appalling, when its broad expanse is cut up into myriad gulleys and mountains in which the ship is lost as in a labyrinth; but to me it has always been even more terrible and menacing when it is calm. In time of storm, its fury rages without curb; the worst is with you. But when the sea is quiet, all its energies hidden, it is like the smiling mask of Fate which conceals unguessed and unpredicted blows.
“Thus, when we sailed southward over smooth and smiling seas, I fell victim to an unrest that harassed me. I rose and looked abroad each day with eyes that searched eagerly for a threat of the fate that seemed impending; and even as I watched the sea, in like manner did I watch Eric Scarf, to discover if I could what it was that hung so threateningly over the man’s smiling head.
“If Eric felt any uneasiness, he gave at first no sign. He was as he had always been, confident, and quick, and strong. But the day came when a hint was given us, just as the impalpable atmospheric changes reveal through the glass the approach of storm.
“We had sighted whales more than once, and made a fair beginning on the long task ahead of us; and then one day in the South Atlantic, the boats were lowered for a pod that lay far off to southward. Eric got fast, and the third mate likewise. But the whale I had chosen as my goal took alarm, and whirled toward us, and then fled before our irons could reach him.
“There had been time, however, for us to see upon his head a dull scar, in the form of a cross, and I heard a cry from Eric’s boat, that was just getting fast, and turned to see Eric staring toward the spot where the old bull had disappeared.
“Then I remembered what the men had said about the whale which had stove Eric’s boat after the kill on the other voyage; and when we were aboard again, the cutting-in done, and the tryworks boiling and smoking, I was not surprised that Eric came to me.
“‘Mark,’ he whispered huskily, ‘was there a cross on the bull that got away?’
“I nodded. ‘On his head,’ I said. ‘An old scar, gouged into the blubber.’
“I saw his jaw set hard. ‘It can’t be!’ he exclaimed, half to himself. I said nothing; and he looked at me a moment later, with an agony of doubt in his eyes.