Chapter Sixty Two.
A dangerous Equilibrium.
Ben had taken along with him the axe; and, proceeding towards one of the harpoons,—still buried in the body of the whale,—he commenced cutting it out.
In a few moments a deep cavity was hewn out around the shank of the harpoon; which was further deepened, until the barbed blade was wellnigh laid bare. Snowball, impatiently seizing the stout wooden shaft, gave it a herculean pluck, that completely detached the arrow from the soft blubber in which it had been imbedded.
Unfortunately for Snowball, he had not well calculated the strength required for clearing that harpoon. Having already made several fruitless attempts to extract it, he did not expect it to draw out so easily; and, in consequence of his making an over-effort, his balance became deranged; his feet, ill-planted upon the slippery skin, flew simultaneously from beneath him; and he came down upon the side of the leviathan with a loud “slap,”—similar to what might have been heard had he fallen upon half-thawed ice.
Unpleasant as this mishap may have been, it was not the worst that might have befallen him on that occasion. Nor was it the fall itself that caused him to “sing out” at the top of his voice, and in accents betokening a terrible alarm.
What produced this manifestation was a peril of far more fearful kind, which at the moment menaced him.
The spot where the harpoon had been sticking was in the side of the cachalot, and, as the carcass lay, a broad space around the weapon presented an inclined plane, sloping abruptly towards the water. Lubricated as it was with the secreted oil of the animal, it was smooth as glass. Upon this slope Snowball had been standing; and upon it had he fallen.
But the impetus of the fall not only hindered him from lying where he had gone down, but also from being able to get up again; and, instead of doing either one or the other, he commenced sliding down the slippery surface of the leviathan’s body, where it shelved towards the water.
Good heavens! what was to become of him? A score of sharks were just below,—waiting for him with hungry jaws, and eyes glancing greedily upward. Seeing the two men mounted upon the carcass of the whale, and one wielding an axe, they had gathered upon that side,—in the belief that the flensing was about to begin!