The men were tumbling up the hatches—pouring up. You could hardly have believed so many men had been below. They ran along the decks and trundled into the hanging boats like so many monkeys; the tackles are let go, blocks creak, and one by one they disappear beneath the bulwarks and reach the water, with a flop and a plash that tell of speed and excitement. And now they are off. The men bend well to their oars, and, encouraged by the shouts of the coxswain and harpooner, they fly over the water—together first, but soon in a line, for it is a race, and the first harpooner that strikes the fish will be well rewarded.
But where is the whale? Why, yonder; two goodly miles to leeward. You can only see three parts of it—black dots above the water; the skull, the back, and the tail tip.
McBain and his boys were left almost alone, for here were hardly men enough to work the ship, and the silence that had succeeded the noise and shouting was intense in its gloominess.
“Come, lads!” cried McBain, “we mustn’t stop here; let us see the fun; let us follow the hunt, and be in at the death!”
The Snowbird’s gig was speedily alongside, and in a few minutes more was bounding over the rippling waters to where the other boats were. It needed not McBain’s “Give way, my lads! give way with a will!” to make the men do their utmost. They too were wild with excitement.
But see, the boats are spreading out; they are no longer together; the whale has dived, and there is no saying where she may come up. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes of suspense creep slowly away; the crew of the gig have been lying on their oars. But look! there she is again! her huge bulk appears in the very midst of the boats. Let her go either way, or any way, she is sure of a shot. She makes a dash for it. Bang, bang, bang! from the bows of three of the boats. She is struck—twice struck—but she but increases her speed, the line goes spinning over the bows; there is blood in her wake, and the men bend now to their oars with the fury of maniacs. She is badly hurt; she is confused; she stops for a moment to lash the water madly with her tail, then dives once more. But she cannot sulk long, breathe she must. And the boats still go tearing on, and the lines are being coiled in again. The other boats move on ahead, too; they want to surround “the fish.” One of these is the captain’s boat; they can see his burly form in the bow. Mindful of his words, the gig keeps on in her wake.
“Back astern, men!” cries McBain, as the giant whale rises almost under their very bows. “Back, back for your lives!”
To say that our heroes were astonished at the size and strength of the angry monster, would but poorly express the amount of their surprise. Their hearts seemed to stand still with awe. They were thunderstruck. Ah! and here was thunder too, those awful blows! The sound may be heard miles and miles away on a still day. I know, reader, of nothing in nature that gives one a greater idea of vastness, of strength and power, than a whale’s body raised high in air and curved round in the attitude of striking; the skin seems tightened over, it glitters like a gigantic piston-rod, and it seems trebly powerful. But oh! to be under that dreadful tail.
When, awestruck and half-drowned with spray, our heroes managed to look around them, the thunder had ceased, the whale was gone; there were blood and foam in front of them, beyond that the wreck of the captain’s boat. She was so smashed up that she hadn’t even sunk; her timbers lay all about, and clinging to them the drowning and maimed wretches that had not been killed outright. The gig and two other boats made haste to assist. In at the death! They were indeed in at the death. The captain was among the slain. His body was found floating, strange to say, at some considerable distance from the wreck. He seemed in a deep quiet sleep. Alas! it was a sleep from which he would awake no more in this world.
And the whale had gone. She had made direct for the island of ice and dived beneath it, and there the lines were cut.