In these waters a week would suffice for ships of heavy tonnage to fill their casks with the precious oil. Thus the new men of the crew, and especially the Americans, did not conceal their regret for the captain’s indifference in the presence of so many animals worth their weight in gold, and more abundant than they had ever seen whales at that period of the year. The leading malcontent was Hearne, a sealing-master, to whom his companions were ready to listen. He had found it easy to get the upper hand of the other sailors by his rough manner and the surly audacity that was expressed by his whole personality. Hearne was an American, and forty-five years of age. He was an active, vigorous man, and I could see him in my mind’s eye, standing up on his double bowed whaling-boat brandishing the harpoon, darting it into the flank of a whale, and paying out the rope. He must have been fine to see. Granted his passion for this business, I could not be surprised that his discontent showed itself upon occasion.
In any case, however, our schooner was not fitted out for fishing, and the implements of whaling were not on board.
One day, about three o’clock in the afternoon, I had gone forward to watch the gambols of a “school” of the huge sea mammals. Hearne was pointing them out to his companions, and muttering in disjointed phrases,—
“There, look there! That’s a fin-back! There’s another, and another; three of them with their dorsal fins five or six feet high. Just see them swimming between two waves, quietly, making no jumps. Ah! if I had a harpoon, I bet my head that I could send it into one of the four yellow spots they have on their bodies. But there’s nothing to be done in this traffic-box; one cannot stretch one’s arms. Devil take it! In these seas it is fishing we ought to be at, not—”
Then, stopping short, he swore a few oaths, and cried out, “And that other whale!”
“The one with a hump like a dromedary?” asked a sailor.
“Yes. It is a humpback,” replied Hearne. “Do you make out its wrinkled belly, and also its long dorsal fin? They’re not easy to take, those humpbacks, for they go down into great depths and devour long reaches of your lines. Truly, we deserve that he should give us a switch of his tail on our side, since we don’t send a harpoon into his.”
“There, look there! That’s a fin-back!”