Captain Rogers was on deck in a moment. He ran up after Ben Gibson and took an earnest peek through the glasses himself. Then he dropped down to the quarter and said, but with satisfaction:
“Only one fish in sight. May be more ahead. Perhaps it’s a she with a calf and has got behind the school. We’ll see. Now, boys! tumble up and let’s get the rags on her.”
We went at the sails with a will and for the first time I saw every yard of canvas the Scarboro could set flung to the breeze. The old bark began to hustle. She was heavy and she could do no fancy sailing; but having the wind with her she rushed down upon the lone whale like a steamship. Soon we could see the undulating black hump of the whale from the deck.
We saw an occasional spurt of water, or mist, from its blow-holes. By and by it breached and was out of sight for a short time. When it came up again it was still tail-end to the Scarboro and not half a mile away. There was no other whale in sight; but this was a big fellow—a right whale, or baleener. After coming up it lay quietly on the water, or moving ahead very slowly.
The men were eager to get after it in the boats; but Captain Rogers knew a better way than that to attack a lone whale. We reefed down again and left little canvas exposed while the Scarboro kept on her tack under the momentum she had already gathered. The captain went forward where the gun had been made ready. He swung it about on its pivot and got the range of the whale.
At this small distance the huge mammal looked like a cigar-shaped piece of smooth, shiny slate-colored India-rubber—no longer black. Four or five feet of its diameter and forty feet or more of its length showed like a mound in the smooth water, and the body alternately rose and dipped as the whale swam slowly along. It was doubtless feeding on the tiny marine creatures which are the sole food of the right whale. It took great “gulps” of sea water into its cavernous mouth, water which it strained out through its curtain of baleen, swallowing only the tiny fish down a gullet so small that it would not admit a man’s fist.
The Scarboro was approaching it from behind and at an angle, so that its course and ours made the sides of a V. Captain Rogers followed the course of the whale alertly, swinging the muzzle of the cannon with skill. Most of the crew were grouped behind him in anxious expectancy.
Suddenly I felt a touch upon my arm. It was Tom Anderly. He was pointing silently over the port bow. There, a couple of miles away, I judged, several columns of mist were spouting into the air. There was the school!
But I turned to view the nearby mammoth again just as the gun spoke. I saw a hideous, crimson zigzag gash on the broad side of the whale, I heard the rumbling roar of the time-bomb at the point of the harpoon exploding in the whale’s vitals.
Instantly the whole crew were in a pandemonium of excitement; but the captain’s shrill orders were obeyed like clockwork. I felt the blow of the great bark give a convulsive jerk. The whale had gone straight downward and the cable attached to the harpoon shot over the bow so fast that the eye could not follow its course. Where the hemp touched the rail a column of smoke arose. Two men sprang with buckets to dip up the sea-water and pour it upon the shrieking line. The windlass spun around like a boy’s top.