“Bear a hand, my hearties,” cried the captain, as the men sprang to the boats which were swinging at the davits. “Get your tubs in! Clear your falls! Look alive, lads! Stand-by to lower! All ready?”
“All ready, sir.”
“Thar she blows!” came again from the masthead with redoubled energy. “Sperm-whales, sir; there’s a school of ’em.”
“A school of them!” whispered Ailie, who had left her post at the mizzen-shrouds, and now stood by her father’s side, looking on at the sudden hubbub in unspeakable amazement. “Do whales go to school?” she said, laughing.
“Out of the road, Ailie, my pet,” cried her father hastily. “You’ll get knocked over. Lower away, lads, lower away!”
Down went the starboard, larboard, and waist-boats as if the falls had been cut, and almost before you could wink the men literally tumbled over the side into them, took their places, and seized their oars.
“Here, Glynn, come with me, and I’ll show you a thing or two,” said the captain. “Jump in, lad; look sharp.”
Glynn instantly followed his commander into the starboard boat, and took the aft oar. Tim Rokens, being the harpooner of that boat, sat at the bow oar with his harpoons and lances beside him, and the whale-line coiled in a tub in the boat’s head. The captain steered.
And now commenced a race that taxed the boats’ crews to the utmost; for it is always a matter keenly contested by the different crews, who shall fix the first harpoon in the whale. The larboard boat was steered by Mr Millons, the first mate; the waist-boat by Mr Markham, the second mate—the latter an active man of about five-and-twenty, whose size and physical strength were herculean, and whose disposition was somewhat morose and gloomy.
“Now, lads, give way! That’s it! that’s the way. Bend your backs, now! do bend your backs,” cried the captain, as the three boats sprang from the ship’s side and made towards the nearest whale, with the white foam curling at their bow.