Coil after coil of the rope leaped into nothingness. Had there been a big express locomotive hitched to that line, and going at full speed, I do not think the line would have paid out any faster!
At last the windlass ceased to spin. The whale had either touched bottom, or had descended as far as it could. We had already laid our mainsail aback and as the line lay slack upon the water, Captain Rogers motioned to the men at the windlass to wind in. It was like playing a fish at the end of a line and reel.
Those next few moments were breathless ones for all hands. Suddenly the sea parted right off the port bow, and not half a cable’s length ahead. Up, and up the gigantic creature rose—up, up, up till it towered fifteen feet above the Scarboro’s rail!
Then it turned a somersault, beating the sea to waves like the boiling of a cauldron. It rose again, churning the sea with its tail, and then raising the caudal fin for twenty feet, or more, and slapping it down upon the water with a shock like the report of a big gun—aye, like a thunder-clap!
Then the great beast whirled round and round—it seemed seeking for the thing that had so hurt it. We watched the struggle of the leviathan with pop-eyed expectation—especially the young second mate and myself, for we were the only real greenhorns aboard the Scarboro. The whale wrapped several lengths of the line about its body and then shot away into the southwest, away from the distant school. It swam so fast that it actually seemed to skip from wave to wave like a swallow.
When it reached the end of the slack there was a jerk that shook the bark from stem to stern. Then came the tug of war. There was no small whaleboat behind it, but a great, 195 ton bark, and this massive bulk the creature actually towed like a steam-tug towing a steamship.
The captain let more line out. Far out at the end of two miles of line the whale lashed about, and churned the sea, and blew blasts of vapor into the air. Then old Tom Anderly cried that it was spouting blood and we knew the end was near.
But the captain gave the whale half an hour in which to die before ordering the line wound inboard. The rest of the school had gone on steadily into the south and was still several miles away. We could not launch our boats for them, but gave our complete attention to the first kill.
As the whale felt the pull of the line it gave a single convulsive jump. But after waiting a moment or two, Captain Rogers commanded the windlass to be manned again. Slowly the line came in and, after a time, the huge, inert, flabby body floated, belly up, just off our bows.
The mate’s boat was lowered and a chain was passed around the whale’s body just forward of the tail. With this it was grappled to the Scarboro’s side. I could see a dozen quarreling porpoises eating the tongue of the monster that had been, two hours before, alive and, to these scavengers, invincible.