"Agh!" the captain exclaimed, jumping from the gun platform, at last, "the whale captain have the worst business of all men. Agh! but I wish for rough seas. But I wish I had my harpoon in the back of some whale."
All days are not blue. Before the summer was over, Billy Topsail learned there were times when the Viking put out from the shelter of Snook's Arm to a sea that is rough. A gale from the northeast, gray and gusty, whips up the white horses, and frost gives new weight to the water. Wind and fog and high seas and sleet make the chase perilous as well as bitter. She stumbles through the waves and wallows in the trough with a clear-cut duty before her—to catch and kill a whale: the little niceties of dodging breaking waves cannot be indulged in when all manœvering must be directed towards coming up with the quarry from the proper firing-quarter.
But Billy's first day was clear and quiet; and the whales were having a glorious innings with the enemy.
By noon the prospects for a kill had faded to a bare possibility; the school had been well scattered. Down the coast and up the coast, out to sea and far away across the bay, puffs of spray made known the various directions the whales had taken. About two o'clock—ten hours out from Snook's Arm, with no let up in duty—the crew were attracted by the deep, long hon-g-k of a big fellow out to sea and by the spouting of his two companions: a group of three, male and female, doubtless, with a well-grown young one. They gave chase. Captain and crew had come to that pass when fury gets the better of patience.
It was determined to hunt that little school to the death or until deep night put an end to the chase.
"I get 'im," said the captain between his teeth. "He is big. I get him—or none."
It was not easy to get him. They were led twenty miles to sea in short rushes, each of which ended in disappointment and elicited a storm of guttural ejaculations; they were lured inshore, where submerged rocks were a menace; they were taken up the coast and back again towards the islands of the lower shore and once more to sea. Mile after mile—hour after hour! They came near—they could have hit the beast with a stone. Occasionally the captain swung the gun into position and put a hand on the trigger; but the arching back always gave notice, in good time, that he had been balked again. They tried to guess the point where the quarry would rise; they steamed near that point, and lay there waiting.
"Hon-g-k!" from half a mile astern.
"Agh!" cried the captain, chagrin twisting his face. "The whale captain have pos—ee—tiv—lee the worst——! Full speed!"