“I thought you could hardly be made of ordinary flesh and blood. You seem to work like a machine and never to think of rest, while I often find myself wondering how much longer I can hold out.”
“Ah, me boy,” responded Merritt, laying his hand most affectionately on C. B.’s arm, “you forget the differences between our ages. You’re only a boy just done growin’, ’bout twenty-two ain’t ye? while I—well I don’t quite know how old I am, but I guess about thirty-five, have got all my gristle hardened into man, and can plug along ’thout showin’ it. But you shape better than any youngster I ever see.”
As Merritt finished speaking, C. B. suddenly bethought him of Pepe, lying aft there in miserable pain, and slipped along to his side. Finding the wounded man awake he dropped one knee beside him, saying—
“How is it, Pepe? Can I do anything for you, get a pipe, a drink, or move you?”
Pepe looked up at the fine eager face, and moistened his lips twice or thrice before he replied with another question: “What made ye save me? If I’d been in your place, I’d let ye die, an’ glad o’ the chance. An’ I’d be best pleased if you’d let me go when I was three parts gone. I don’t want t’ live cos you’ve beat me, you an’ yer Chinaman. Go away; I hate ye, an’ if I could I’d kill ye now. What did ye ever come aboard this ship for? Ye’ve made a hell of her for better men than you are.”
C. B. knew better than to stay and talk to a man in that frame of mind, a man too who, for all he knew, might be raving in delirium; but he thought with some consolation of certain unclean spirits of old who cried to the healing Lord, “Art thou come to torment us before our time?” and turned away to his berth below, where he found a good and ample meal awaiting him. He ate and drank reverently, gratefully, and then, greatly refreshed, lay down in his bunk and went fast asleep almost on the instant, having not a single care of his own. And, as it happened that he was not in the first watch, it was 2 a.m. before he was called, and then he sprang to his feet at the word full of life and energy.
When he rushed on deck he found the machinery of oil-boiling in full blast, the caldrons bubbling fiercely, the square iron funnels of the try-works blazing like the squat chimneys of an iron foundry, and the clatter of the mincing machine incessant. He had little imagination or he would have thought what a picture she made, this tiny hive of human energy with all her toilers, in the midst of that immense stretch of lonely ocean, engaged in converting to human use the treasure of the boundless deep ravished from its mightiest denizen. But he only saw a little group of almost dead-beat men who had been working mechanically for hours, only thought pityingly of the ill-requited toil and what he considered to be the folly of it all.
Then he plunged into the work himself, while the second and fourth mates prowled about the decks, keeping a vigilant eye upon possible shirkers, seeing the great casks rolled away from the cooler as the cooked oil was poured into them and they brimmed over. In fact the ship was now just a floating factory from which, except to an observant onlooker if such there had been, all romance had departed to make way for the greasy heavy toil. No lookout was kept, no hand at the wheel, which was lashed hard a lee; for, in case any other ship should be wandering that way, the trying-out whaler was a beacon in herself, visible for many miles. She certainly could not run another ship down, and any one who run her down could be little less than a criminal lunatic, at least quite unfit to have charge of a ship.
So the heavy round of work went on without intermission until, about 4.30, the darkest hour before the dawn, all hands on deck were startled beyond measure by hearing a high clear voice crying—
“Ship ahoy! What ship is that? Do you need any assistance?” All eyes were turned in the direction of the hail, and there close by them rode a ship of war, her side crowded with men plainly visible in the blue flare she was burning, but looking all corpse-like in that unnatural light.