"That is just the motion I distrust, Stephen, and I shall wait a bit to see what he would be at. I hope those ship-keepers will be busy, and work the schooners well up to windward before it gets to be dark. Our man is asleep half his time, and is apt to let the vessel fall off a point or two."
"Mr. Hazard gave him caution to keep a bright look out, sir, and I think he'll be apt to--look out, sir!--Look out!"
This warning was well-timed; for, just at that instant the whale ceased sculling, and lifting its enormous tail high in the air, it struck five or six blows on the surface of the water, that made a noise which might have been heard half a league, besides filling the atmosphere immediately around him with spray. As the tail first appeared in the air, line was permitted to run out of the boat, increasing the distance between its bows and the flukes to quite a hundred feet. Nothing could better show the hardy characters of the whalers than the picture then presented by Roswell Gardiner and his companions. In the midst of the Atlantic, leagues from their vessel, and no other boat in sight, there they sat patiently waiting the moment when the giant of the deep should abate in his speed, or in his antics, to enable them to approach and complete their capture. Most of the men sat with their arms crossed, and bodies half-turned, regarding the scene, while the two officers, the master and boat-steerer, if the latter could properly be thus designated, watched each evolution with a keenness of vigilance that let nothing like a sign or a symptom escape them.
Such was the state of things, the whale still threshing the sea with his flukes, when a cry among his men induced Roswell for a moment to look aside. There came Daggett fast to a small bull, which was running directly in the wind's eye with great speed, dragging the boat after him, which was towing astern at a distance of something like two hundred fathoms. At first, Roswell thought he should be compelled to cut from his whale, so directly towards his own boat did the other animal direct his course. But, intimidated, most probably, by the tremendous blows with which the larger bull continued to belabour the ocean, the smaller animal sheered away in time to avoid a collision, though he now began to circle the spot where his dreaded monarch lay. This change of course gave rise to a new source of apprehension. If the smaller bull should continue to encircle the larger, there was great reason to believe that the line of Daggett might get entangled with the boat of Gardiner, and produce a collision that might prove fatal to all there. In order to be ready to meet this danger, Roswell ordered his crew to be on the look-out, and to have their knives in a state for immediate use. It was not known what might have been the consequence of this circular movement as respects the two boats; for, before they could come together, Daggett's line actually passed into the mouth of Gardiner's whale, and drawing up tight into the angle of his jaws, set the monster in motion with a momentum and power that caused the iron to draw from the smaller whale, which by this time had more than half encircled the animal. So rapid was the rate of running now, that Roswell was obliged to let out line, his whale sounding to a prodigious depth. Daggett did the same unwilling to cut as long as he could hold on to his line.
At the expiration of five minutes the large bull came up again for breath, with both lines still fast to him; the one in the regular way, or attached to the harpoon, and the other jammed in the jaws of the animal by means of the harpoon and staff, which formed a sort of toggle at the angle of his enormous mouth. In consequence of feeling this unusual tenant, the fish compressed its jaws together, thus rendering the fastening so much the more secure. As both boats had let run line freely while the whale was sounding, they now found themselves near a quarter of a mile astern of him, towing along, side by side, and not fifty feet asunder. If the spirit of rivalry had been aroused among the crew of these two boats before, it was now excited to a degree that menaced acts of hostility.
"You know, of course, Captain Daggett, that this is my whale," said Gardiner. "I was fast to him regularly, and was only waiting for him to become a little quiet to lance him, when your whale crossed his course, fouled your line, and has got you fast in an unaccountable way, but not according to whaling law."
"I don't know that. I fastened to a whale, Captain Gar'ner, and am fast to a whale now. It must be proved that I have no right to the crittur' before I give him up."
Gardiner understood the sort of man with whom he had to deal too well to waste words in idle remonstrances. Resolved to maintain his just rights at every hazard, he ordered his men to haul in upon the line, the movement of the whale becoming so slow as to admit of this measure. Daggett's crew did the same, and a warm contest existed between the two boats, as to which should now first close with the fish and kill it. This was not a moment for prudence and caution. It was "haul in--haul in, boys," in both boats, without any regard to the danger of approaching the whale. A very few minutes sufficed to bring the parties quite in a line with the flukes, Gardiner's boat coming up on the larboard or left-hand side of the animal, where its iron was fast, and Daggett's on the opposite, its line leading out of the jaws of the fish in that direction. The two masters stood erect on their respective clumsy cleets, each poising his lance, waiting only to get near enough to strike. The men were now at the oars, and without pausing for any thing, both crews sprung to their ashen instruments, and drove the boats headlong upon the fish. Daggett, perhaps, was the coolest and most calculating at that moment, but Roswell was the most nervous, and the boldest. The boat of the last actually hit the side of the whale, as its young commander drove his lance through the blubber, into the vitals of the fish. At the same instant Daggett threw his lance with consummate skill, and went to the quick. It was now "stern all!" for life, each boat backing off from the danger as fast as hands could urge. The sea was in a foam, the fish going into his "flurry" almost as soon as struck, and both crews were delighted to see the red of the blood mingling its deep hues with the white of the troubled water. Once or twice the animal spouted, but it was a fluid dyed in his gore. In ten minutes it turned up and was dead.
Chapter XII.
"God save you, sir!"
"And you, sir! you are welcome."
"Travel you far on, or are you at the furthest?"
"Sir, at the furthest for a week or two."
Shakspeare.