So on we went through the warm quiet night without the slightest sign of slackening until the gladsome light of dawn quickened on the sea-rim, and showed us that we were alone—there was no sign of the ship. A gaunt and haggard crew we looked, anxiety scoring deep furrows in our wan faces. And as the sun sprang into the sky we suddenly came to a dead stop. The strain on the line compelled us to pay out, and thus we hovered in a circle, bows awash, and awaited the pleasure of our foe. There was a sudden upspringing of all boats, a hasty manœuvring to clear one another as far as might be, and, before any of us could have imagined it possible, high into our midst leaped the spotted whale, his awful jaws agape, and his whole body writhing in its evolution. Straight for the skipper’s boat he came, taking it diagonally, and, with a crash that set all our teeth on edge, she disappeared. A mist arose before our sight, the spray of the conflict filling the air, but, fired beyond fear by the wholesale tragedy we believed had taken place, we bent to our oars till they cracked, thirsting for that monster’s blood. As we came bounding to the spot he disappeared, and, to our unspeakable amazement (though we had no time to show it) all the destroyed boat’s crew reappeared. But if Captain Cushing had looked dangerous before, his appearance now was that of a demoniac. His cap was gone, so that the yellow dome of his head loomed strangely in the early morning light, his clothing hung from him in ribbons, and his right arm dangled as if only held by a few sinews. He had come right out of the whale’s jaws. All the others were scathless.
To all offers of help he turned a savage scowl, and seizing a bomb-gun in his uninjured hand he jammed himself in the boat’s bows, his voice, unaltered save for being a little higher in pitch, being heard and obeyed among the other boats on the instant. The whale returned. At the captain’s orders all cut their lines, and the real fight began. Truly Captain Cushing was fit to be a leader of men, for his eyes missed nothing. At his orders all four boats advanced, retreated, backed, circled, stopped dead. He seemed able to penetrate the misleading medium of the water, where a whale at twenty fathoms’ depth looks like a salmon, and whatever move the monster made, his counter-move baffled the savage intent. Yet all the time we were strictly on the defensive. Our long night’s tow, want of food and drink, and since daylight the tremendous strain upon our nerves, was surely telling against us, and our adversary was apparently tireless. Not only so, but his ingenuity never flagged. Ruse after ruse was tried by him, but no two were alike. And without a doubt our hopes of coming alive out of this battle were growing fainter and fainter every moment.
Things were in this gloomy stage when, with a most appalling roar, the whale suddenly broke water on his back, and launched himself at the captain’s boat. The wide sea boiled like a pot as he came, but, to our horror, the boat lay still, as if anchored to the spot. The crash came, and amidst its uproar we heard the sharp report of a gun. Like a great whirlpool the waters foamed and rose, nothing being distinguishable in the midst of the vortex until it gradually subsided, and we saw the fragments of the boat idly tossing upon the crimson foam. Hastening to the rescue, we found six men still alive, but all sadly hurt. The seventh was gone. At last Captain Cushing had paid in full the debt that had been owing. We were now completely overborne with fatigue as well as overloaded with helpless men—utterly unfit to compete any further with so fearful a foe. While we lay thus helplessly awaiting what all felt must be the end, the whale again broke water about twenty yards away. Up, up, up into the air he rose, effortless, majestically; and as he soared aloft every heart stood still to see the body of our late commander hanging limply at the angle of that yawning mouth. The yellow visage was towards us, the same savage grin frozen upon it, but the will against which everything had shivered was now but the will of the drift-weed round about; that clammy piece of clay was tenantless.
Down came the gigantic form, tearing up the sea into foam and disappeared from our sight, to be seen no more. Long and wearily we waited, hungry and thirsty, and some in agony from their injuries, until twenty-four hours later the Beluga found us, and all were safely taken on board. Strangely transformed the old ship appeared. At first we went about as we had been wont, not daring to exchange thoughts with one another. But gradually the blessed truth soaked in. We were freed from a tyranny more dire than any of us had realized—a tyranny over mind as well as body. Officers and men rejoiced together, for all had suffered. And it was at once decided to return home in leisurely fashion, calling at well-known ports on the way, and endeavouring to make up by a little joy of life for past miseries.
What the true inwardness of Captain Cushing’s desire of revenge on the spotted whale was we never rightly knew, but many rumours were current among ships that we gammed that he had, with his own hand many years before, killed the whale of a small pod, or company of whales, of which the spotted whale was the leader, and that they had met on several occasions afterwards, their meeting always being attended by some grave disaster to Cushing’s ship and crew. This had wrought upon his mind until it had become a mania, and he was willing to risk all for the chance of slaying his redoubtable foe. But we had no doubt that the whale was merely the instrument chosen by Providence for meting out to him a death he richly deserved for his many crimes.
THE SKIPPER’S WIFE
Stories of the Sea have in my humble opinion been quite unfairly dealt with by the majority of their narrators. Told for the benefit of non-seafaring folk by writers, who, however great their literary gifts, have had merely a nodding acquaintance with the everyday doings on board ship, they generally lack proportion, and fail to convey to shore folk an intimate sense of the sea-atmosphere. Especially has this been so with books for young people, as was no doubt to be expected. So much has this been the case that sailors generally despise sea-stories, finding them utterly unlike anything they have ever experienced themselves. Of late years there have been some notable exceptions among sea story writers, most of them happily still living and doing splendid service. One cunning hand is still, that of James Runciman, whose yarns are salt as the ocean, and have most truly held the mirror up to Nature in a manner unexcelled by any other marine writer living or dead. Freedom from exaggeration, clarity of expression, and sympathetic insight into sea-life were his main features, and no one hated more than he the utterly impossible beings and doings common to the bulk of sea-fiction.
Whether it be from lack of imaginative power or an unfertile inventiveness I cannot say, but it has always appeared to me as if one need never travel outside the actual facts of his experience, however humdrum it may appear to the casual observer, to find matters sufficiently interesting to hold any intelligent reader enthralled, always providing that matter be well presented. And in that belief I venture to tell a plain tale here, into which no fiction enters except proper names.
Drifting about the world, as the great fucus wanders from shore to shore, having once been dislodged from its parent rock, I one day found myself ashore at Quilimane, desperately anxious to get a berth in any capacity on board ship for the sole purpose of getting away. My prospects were not very rosy, for the only vessels in the hateful place were two or three crazy country craft with Arab crews, that looked exceedingly like slavers to me. At last, to my intense relief, a smart looking barquentine entered the port and anchored. I was, as usual, lounging about the beach (it seemed the healthiest place I could find) and my longing eyes followed every move of the crew as they busied themselves in getting the boat out. When the captain stepped ashore I was waiting to meet him, and the first words he heard were—