CHAPTER VIII Treachery and its Consequences
There are few pleasures in life comparable with the contemplation of the successful results of a tremendous struggle with overwhelming odds in company with your fellows, whether you be leader or follower. And I know of no circumstance where this is more fully exemplified than in the precious rest-time enjoyed by a boat’s crew immediately after the death of a whale. No matter how bad the treatment of the men on board the ship may have been, how utterly weary of the life everybody may feel, or how brutal officer and harponeer, the sense of having successfully finished the combat draws them all together for a time, and the smoke which is then permitted is essentially in the nature of a pipe of peace.
In the present case everybody was full of satisfaction. For in the first place the new harponeer had acquitted himself in the best and most approved fashion, the highest expectations of him had been fully justified. Next, the whole operation had proceeded on the most orthodox lines, both on the part of the whale and his destroyers. And lastly, the weather had been fine, the time not too long, and crowning joy of all, the prize was of the largest and therefore the most payable size. Even Mr. Merritt’s curious yellow face wore a less ghastly expression than usual, which in his case meant immense satisfaction.
Their rest was of very brief duration, for when the whale died the ship was barely three miles away to windward, and she had immediately filled away for them. When she reached within a quarter of a mile she was brought smartly up into the wind with her mainyard aback and laid still. Immediately Mr. Merritt gave the order to slack away the line and pull for the ship, which they reached in five minutes, noting as they did so that all the other boats were in their place, at the davits, and that the faces of the crew wore a preternatural air of gloom. The bight of the line was passed on board and all hands tailed on to it, walking the whale up to the ship in rapid fashion. And as the great mass came alongside the skipper’s face lightened, for he mentally assessed its stupendous proportions as able to yield about fourteen tons, or a hundred and forty barrels of oil. In splendid seamanlike fashion the fluke chain was passed round the tail and hauled through the mooring pipe in the bow, where it was secured to the massive fluke chain bitt, an oaken post built into the ship and bolted to the heel of the bowsprit.
Without a moment’s interval the work of cutting in was begun, but the newly arrived boat’s crew were given time to get into another rig. And C. B. received a fresh surprise when, with a pleased look on his face, he went up to Pepe, the chief harponeer, and asked him what had happened to the other boats that they had missed their chance. It was a simple question, which, had C. B. known anything of the world, he would never have asked, for he would then have known that it would be taken as a bitter insult. Indeed it nearly led to tragedy, for Pepe’s face went reddish black with rage, the veins in his neck stood out like cords of the thickness of a little finger, and he snarled out something in his own language, looking like a starving wolf as he did so. Then in a calmer tone he said—
“Don’ you begin poke no fun at me, Mr. Greenie, or I settle de account mighty quick. You talk somebody else.” And turned away, leaving the bewildered C. B. staring wonderingly at him.
But not for long, for Captain Taber came up, saying pleasantly as he did so—
“Look a here, young man, you’re most too good for this wicked world, you air, an’ I’m afraid I’m goin’ t’ have big trouble about ye. Whatever possessed ye to go and ask Pepe what ye did? I heard ye.”