As I say, without these words I could have been sure that the bark was a whaler. She was the Scarboro Captain Hiram Rogers, and just beginning her voyage for the South Seas. The Greenland, or right whale, is no longer plentiful, but the cachelot and other species have become wonderfully common of late years. This fact has drawn capital to the business of whaling once more, and although steam has for the most part supplanted sails, and the gun and explosive bullet serve the office formerly held by the harpoon and the lance, more than a few of the old whale-fishing fleet have come into their own again.
For the Scarboro was built in the thirties of the last century; but so well did those old Yankee boat builders construct the barks meant for the fishing trade—for they were expected to stand many a tight squeeze in the ice as well as a possible head-on collision with a mad whale—that their length of life, and of usefulness, is phenomenal. At least, the Scarboro looked to be a most staunch and seaworthy craft.
The young fellow who had hailed me was Second Mate Gibson, nephew of the captain and, I very soon discovered, possessed of little more practical knowledge of sea-going and seamanship than myself. But he was a brisk, cheerful, educated fellow and being merely the captain’s lieutenant over the watch got along very well. He expected to study navigation with his uncle and be turned off a full-fledged mate, with a certificate, on his return from this whaling voyage.
However, these facts I learned later. Just now I was only anxious to know what was to be done with me, and if there was a likelihood of the captain of the Scarboro touching at any port from which I might make a quick passage home. This last was the uppermost thought in my mind when I followed Ben Gibson below to see the captain.
Captain Rogers was a lanky man with a sandy beard and a quiet blue eye. He did not look as though he ever had, or ever could, be hurried or disturbed. Had I been a Triton that had just come abroad I reckon he would have eyed me quite as calmly and listened as tranquilly to my story. But Gibson was so impatient (as I could easily see) that I made the story brief. He burst out with:
“Captain Rogers! aren’t we going to get that whale? She’s delivered into our hand, as ye might say. The men are eager for it, sir, but you haven’t given orders to change our course.”
“And I’m not likely to, Bennie,” returned his uncle.
“But it’s a waste of oil!” exclaimed the young fellow.
“And it would be a waste of time for us to stop for one miserable whale when we don’t expect to break out our boats until we’re well below the equator. We’d just make a mess of the old hooker and have to clean her up again.”
Gibson was disappointed, and would have urged his desire further, but Captain Rogers turned to me: