"Up bow!" commanded the captain.
In an instant Lem Pawlett, throwing his oar into the boat, was upon his feet, with a harpoon poised in both hands above his head, his face toward the bow. He was within four or five fathoms of the whale. Another stroke of the oars reduced the distance to two; and then, with a mighty effort, he launched the keen-pointed iron into the huge, black, shining mass that lay before him. Quick as thought the harpooner was in his seat, oar in hand, ready to respond to the instantaneously given order, "Back all!" And the boat seemed to spring away from its dangerous proximity to the whale, almost as if its motion was a recoil from Lem's powerful stroke. The huge creature, thus rudely startled, leaped clear of the water, in sudden fright and pain; then darted straight downward toward the bottom. And now ensued the most anxious moments of the chase. The line attached to the harpoon ran out from its coil in the tub abaft of 'midships, around the logger-head astern, and thence forward, between the men as they sat at their oars, and over a roller in the bow, following the fleeing whale so fast that it fairly hissed. Lem sat ready with a hatchet in his hand to cut it, if necessary, as it might at any moment be, to save a man's life. For, should a kink or loop occur in that swift speeding rope, and catch one of the crew by arm, or leg, or neck, it would either kill him at once or hurl him, like a stone from a sling, into the sea, were it not quickly severed.
Fortunately for his hunters, nature has placed the whale under two serious disadvantages. His field of vision is so limited, owing to the position of his eyes, that it is not difficult to approach him closely if his pursuers are cautious to keep back of his flukes; and he must, from time to time, come to the surface to breathe. However deep and far he may plough his way beneath the waves, his enemies know that it is only a question of time when he will have to come up and subject himself to another attack; and however mighty his energies, he must eventually succumb, if the harpoon holds and the line is not cut.
Down, down went the tortured animal, until the men began to cast anxious glances at the supply of line remaining in the tub. But presently the speed slackened. The whale was coming up again. Having once more taken breath, and made a violent but vain effort to shake himself free by beating the waves with his huge flukes and tail, the leviathan started off at his highest speed, swimming near the surface. The boat, following in his wake, dragged along with such velocity that great sheets of water and crests of foam leaped from her bows, and the crew were drenched with spray. Suddenly he again "sounded," as his diving toward the bottom is technically termed by whalers. But this time his stay beneath the surface was less prolonged. He was becoming exhausted. Still he continued to make prodigious struggles to escape.
At length he lay quivering upon the surface, resting. Swiftly, once more, the boat approached him, and Uncle Thatcher, jumping from his place at the stern, stepped lightly forward upon the seats, carrying the lance, a long, keen-edged and pointed blade of steel. It is the post of honor, which belongs of right to the officer in command of a whale-boat, to give the coup-de-grace to the whale, to launch this steel "into his life." With strong and practiced arms Uncle Thatcher drove the weapon deep into the monster's vitals, and so quick was he that he was enabled to strike with effect a second time before the "flurry," or death-struggle, began, and the boat again backed away. As if mad with agony and despair, the dying mountain of flesh beat the water about him into foam; rushed frantically to and fro, seeming to seek his enemies; rolled over and over; all the while, whenever he spouted, throwing crimson torrents of his life-blood into the air. Gradually he became weaker and weaker; at last was still. The victory was won.
Slowly and laboriously the crew towed the enormous carcass to the beach, followed closely by the back fins of several large sharks, attracted to the place by the scent of the whale's blood.
VIII.
SILAS'S FRIEND FROM BOSTON.
A novel and animated scene was presented at the beach the night after the capture of the whale. On a grassy little plateau that sloped gently down between two low sand-dunes toward the sea, was erected a rude shed, beneath which, set in brick-work furnaces over bright wood fires, were two huge kettles for the "trying out" of the oil from the whale's blubber. Aboard whaling ships it is customary to leave the blubber to "ripen" for several days, in close rooms, before it is put into the kettles, as this, it has been ascertained, increases the yield of oil; but the shore whalemen rarely do this. They simply begin at once with the tenderest and most easily treated portions, and by the time they get through, unaccustomed olfactories in the vicinity generally attest that the "ripening" process has been perfected.
Half-a-dozen boys fed the furnaces—first with wood, and later with blubber "scraps," or "cracklings." When not doing that, they scuffled with each other, wrestled on the grass, shouted with gleeful excitement, and unceasingly munched corn and doughnuts cooked in the boiling oil. By the ruddy light of a bonfire before the shed, men cut in strips, with blubber-spades, the enormous masses and slabs of fat, stripped off the whale's carcass down in the surf, and dragged up here on a low, broad-wheeled wagon, drawn by two scraggy horses. Other men carried those strips inside the shed, where one who sat at a raised bench, with a two-handled knife, "minced" them for the kettles. Still others tended the kettles; skimming out, from time to time, the crisp, brown "cracklings," and adding other masses of fat in their stead; sometimes ladling the oil into barrels. When not otherwise busy, they chewed cracklings. Several women came with panfuls of sweet dough, twisted in curious shapes, which, when thrown into the seething oil, were quickly converted into the toothsome doughnuts in which the boys so much delighted.
At one side laid a great pile of black, fibrous, ragged-looking material, dug from the mouth of the whale, the "ballein," which, when carefully cleaned, dried, split, and otherwise prepared, is known as the whalebone of commerce and corsets.