At last, when the rowers felt as if their arms would drop off at the shoulders, the Captain’s deep voice was heard saying, ‘Peak oars, step mast, up sprit.’ These actions were immediately copied by each of the other boats, and, in three minutes from the time they had ceased rowing, the five boats, under the steady stress of their big sails, were bounding over the bright sea before the wind down on to the whales. The propulsion with the oars had only been resorted to for the purpose of obtaining a good weather gauge. That once reached, and the sails set, the boats’ heads were turned at right angles to the course they had been pursuing so that they might now, with the wind almost astern, run down upon the whales at high speed, and with the least possible amount of splash.
It was a splendid sight, that group of unconscious monsters calmly and methodically pursuing their way, quietly attending to their own business of procuring food and enjoying their life; and here, close at hand, stealing upon them like pirates upon a helpless merchantman, this little flotilla of destroyers. Each officer and harpooner was now in the throes of expectation, every nerve tense, all their hopes high that they would reach their prey before the periodical descent of the whales took place. In nine cases out of ten this would not have been the case, but here again, Captain Da Silva’s luck appeared to be in the ascendant, for, as if the boats were living creatures, full of eager desire to come to close quarters with the enemy, they leaped forward with ever-accelerating speed, until the foremost whale, a large bull of about seventy barrels (or, say, sixty feet in length) was only a couple of lengths ahead of the skipper’s boat. Hoarsely he growled, ‘Stand up, Jose!’ The harpooner’s crouching form straightened itself, and, raising the harpoon in both hands while steadying himself by his left thigh in the hollow of the clumsy cleat, he waited, a heroic figure, until, by a skilful sweep of the steering oar, the boat swung end on to the whale’s broad side, and struck it, at the same moment as the harpoon flew from those nervous hands and buried itself in the quivering blubber up to the hitches. Calmly pitching the stray line out of the box over the boat’s side, the harpooner turned to go aft with the face of a man knowing that his duty had been well done. Without taking the slightest notice of the writhings of the tortured leviathan so near or the tremendous commotion in the water, he superintended the rolling up of the sail, the unshipping of the mast, and the passing of it aft where it would be out of the way of the operations.
THE WHALE WENT STEADILY DOWN, DOWN, DOWN.
P. 49.
While the crew of the boat were thus engaged the Captain, with that skill for which he was justly famous, had, by means of the big steering oar, manipulated the boat so that she lay at a safe distance from the whale. The hardly-pressed monster, in orthodox fashion, finding that he could not free himself from the galling weapon, descended steadily, taking out line at a gentle rate, while the Captain changed ends with the harpooner, unsheathed his favourite lance, and awaited the return of the whale to the surface. While so doing, his countenance was a study in ferocity. The immediate prospect of bloodshed seemed to arouse in him all the animal, and, as he glared fiercely around upon his crew, they hardly dared meet his eye, so terrible did he look. But he was compelled to forego his delightful occupation for a while, and remain as quiet as it was possible for him to do while the whale went steadily down, down, down. Meanwhile, by a piece of amazing good fortune, each of the other boats had succeeded in getting fast to a whale without any accident, and now they were all engaged in the same manner as the Captain’s boat, waiting, with such patience as the officers could command, for the rising to the surface of their respective whales. The remainder of the school, having apparently lost all control of themselves, wandered aimlessly around the little company of boats, going slowly backwards and forwards, thrusting their great heads out of the water without apparently the slightest idea of what to do or where to go, and arousing in the minds of the officers, especially in that of the Captain, the fiercest resentment at their inability to take more advantage of so splendid an opportunity as was now offered them. After a wait of nearly half an hour, all the harpooned whales came to the surface at nearly the same moment, and immediately the scene underwent a change as complete as it is possible to imagine. The wounded monsters, rushing frantically in every direction in their vain efforts to escape, the fierce guttural yells of the officers as they plied their slender, gleaming lances upon those vast bodies, the welling fountains of blood that befouled the bright sea surface, all went to make up a picture of savagery which could hardly be equalled by that presented in any land battle. So successful was the conduct of this first encounter that hardly two hours had elapsed since the boats first left the ship when the whole five whales were dead, the boats cleared up, and all was in readiness for the prey to be taken alongside the ship. She, being well and smartly handled by the three or four people left on board, and having got well to windward of the area of battle, now ran down to where the Captain’s boat lay by the side of his dead whale. Having made the line fast to a hole in the whale’s fluke, he ordered his boat to run alongside the ship, and, climbing smartly on board, he superintended the hauling of the whale alongside. Now, the ship being hampered by that gigantic body made fast to her, it became necessary for the crews of the other boats to tow their whales as best they could in the direction of the vessel. Fearfully long and tedious was the process, and the impatience of the Captain rose to a height of almost maniacal fury, although he knew full well that every man was doing his utmost to perform the tremendous task allotted to him. Without a break they toiled until the sun was nearly setting, nor was one moment’s respite allowed them until the whole of the day’s catch was secured alongside and astern of the ship. Then, and not till then, the Captain shouted with a grudging note in his voice, ‘Mr. Court, send the hands to dinner.’ The order was repeated by the mate, and the men wearily dragged themselves below, where the food—cooked long ago—was awaiting them. But as they went the Captain shouted again, ‘Look lively now; yew wanter be on deck again in twenty minutes.’ Having delivered himself thus, he turned towards his cabin, where, for the first time that day, he greeted his wife. She, quite bewildered by the day’s proceedings, summoned up all her affection, and came to greet him with arms outspread, but he, glowering fiercely at her, said, ‘I got no time for fooling now; I got something else to think about.’
This rebuff reduced her to a pitiable state of mind, for it was utterly incomprehensible. That she had done anything to deserve it she could not feel, and, indeed, it was a strange thing that a man in the height of his success, having inaugurated his cruise in so splendid a fashion, with enormous profits lying only waiting to be realised, should be so hatefully morose and savage in his demeanour.
It was a puzzle beyond hope of solution. The meal was taken in utter silence, the food being bolted in truly animal fashion; and, while yet the last mouthfuls were being masticated, the skipper rose abruptly from his seat and said, ‘Now, then, Mr. Court, start the hands again.’ While they had been at dinner the shipkeepers had completed their task of getting the gear ready for cutting in, so that when the officers came on deck and summoned the hands it only remained to commence cutting in the whales at once. Loud orders resounded along the decks, but, for perhaps half a minute, there was no response, and this seemed to act upon the Captain maddeningly. Snatching a belaying-pin from the rail, he strode forward muttering curses, and, beating his weapon upon the scuttle hatch of the forecastle, he roared down into the gloomy cavern, ‘D’ ye want to be smoked out like a nest of hornets?’ Full of alarms, the weary men clambered up the steep ladder, but as the first one reached the deck he was met by a tremendous blow full in the face, which sent him reeling to the deck.
It must be admitted that captain and officers worked hardest of all; in fact, they seemed like men of steel rather than of flesh and blood, and even the weary seamen could hardly refuse a tribute of admiration to the way in which they were led. By midnight, under the glare of blazing cressets suspended from the davit heads, they had managed to cut in two of the whales, and had decapitated the remaining three, the great columnar heads being strung astern by hawsers. Then the Captain reluctantly gave orders that half the crew should retire for an hour while the other half busied themselves in making some sort of a clearance on the deck, which was now piled almost from end to end with blubber, and ankle-deep in oil. How speedily that hour passed for the privileged ones only they could tell. Indeed, it seemed but a moment before they were back at work again, and the other half were sent for the same brief period to rest. But the savage brute of a captain took no rest. He seemed superhuman, and when day dawned the whole of the spoil had been taken on board, with the exception of the three heads, for which no room could be found at present.