Ap’s pipe was now heard on deck, then the trampling of feet, and a few minutes afterwards there was a saucy lurch to leeward, and, although the fiddles were across the table, Rory received the contents of a cup of hot coffee in his lap.
“Now the beauty feels it,” said McBain, with a smile of satisfaction.
“So do I,” said Rory, jumping up and shaking himself; “and its parboiled that my poor legs are entirely.”
“Let us go on deck,” said Allan, “and see the whale.”
Before the end of the forenoon watch they had their strange companion once more on the weather quarter.
“It is evident,” said McBain, “we could beat her.”
Racing a whale, reader, seems idle work, but sailors, when far away at sea, do idler things than that. They were leaning over the bulwarks after dinner that day gazing it this lonely monster of the deep, and guessing and speculating about its movements.
“I wonder,” said Ralph, “if he knows where he is going?”
“I’ve no doubt he does,” said Allan; “the same kind Hand directs his movements that makes the wind to blow and the needle to point to the north.”
“But,” said Ralph, “isn’t there something very solemn about the great beast, ploughing on and on in silence like that, and all alone too—no companion near?”