“Ay, ay, that’s it,” broke forth the mate, “figgerin’ is the word. I’m poor at figgers myself, but my eyes do me instead, for they have good sight and are good at measuring. And that’s why I can calculate almost to the minute when that ice-floe, which is now about a league from us, will be upon us, jamming our timbers.”
“It will never reach us,” replied the captain, in a decided voice; “you can even perceive that it is moving north’ard now, and—”
He paused suddenly and turned his gaze toward the ice, upon which the eyes of the mate had suddenly seemed fixed with steady intensity.
“Ay, there it is again,” shouted the first officer, as a column of vapor shot upward from the center of the floe. “There blows!—there—there blows! The ice is alive with whales, captain Howard!”
“Clear away the boats, there!” shouted the latter.
These words were addressed to the sailors lounging about the windlass, some of them smoking, and others engaged in patching threadbare coats and jackets.
“Lively—lively, men!” yelled the captain, as the “tailors” paused to thrust the garments upon which they had been working, into the many little “cubby-holes” about the windlass, and the smokers proceeded to knock the ashes from their pipes. “Call all hands!”
This command was promptly obeyed, and a dozen men who had been lying asleep upon chests in the forecastle came bounding through the open scuttle.
By this time the decks of the Montpelier presented a scene of bustle and excitement, such as always takes place on board a vessel of her class when whales have been sighted, and preparations are being made to lower away. The men rushed to the falls; the harpooners sprung into their respective boats to prepare the line-tubs and their craft; while the captain and his officers hurried the movements of their crews with frantic gesticulations and excited voices.
In the midst of the uproar stood Alice Howard, watching with dilating eyes and blushing cheeks the movements of Harry Marline, who belonged to the mate’s boat, and who, more than once, while arranging his irons, contrived to direct a quick but smiling glance toward the spot where she stood. She had been so long an inmate of her uncle’s vessel, that—but for the presence of her lover—the scene passing before her eyes would have excited but little interest in her bosom.