A whale will weigh about as many tons as it is feet long—in other words, this seventy-three foot whale weighed probably seventy ton and from the blubber we tried out thirty tons of oil—nearly half its weight in the tanks beside the baleen!
We had been sailing in the wake of the big school of whales we had spied when we killed the baleener. We came up with them again at mid-afternoon, and found that they were sperms. That was why the Mysticete we had killed the day before did not start to drag the Scarboro toward the school. The baleeners and the Denticete (toothed whales) do not mix in company, and are, indeed, seldom found in the same seas. The baleeners are usually found toward the Arctic or Antarctic regions, while the sperms and their ilk hold to the warm seas.
Captain Rogers might have run down to the school of cachelots and gunned for one of the beasts; but then the others would have been frightened away. The bark lay to upon a perfectly calm sea, and at a distance of about two miles from the school, and four boats were manned and shot away from the ship. The whales seemed to be asleep, or lying sunning themselves, upon the surface of the sea.
I was in Ben Gibson’s boat, of which old Tom was steersman. He would handle the iron too, for as I have said, Ben was just as green in the actual practice of whalemanship as I was myself. We raced with the other boats for the nearest prize, which proved to be a husky bull, longer than the baleener we had killed.
I was bow oar, and I found that I could hold my own with the rest of the crew. Our stroke set a slapping pace and we bent to the work as though we were racing for the sport of it. Each crew desired to be first and have the credit of fleshing the iron in this monster. The water being so calm it proved to be a very pretty struggle. And all done so silently! The whale is sharp-eared and on a mill-pond sea like this, sounds carry far. We came up from behind the mammoth, and we were ahead of the other boats.
The captain, in the nearest boat, signaled us with his hand to strike on, while his boat rushed past for another of the sleeping monsters. Old Tom and the young second mate changed places swiftly and the old harpooner stood up poising the heavy iron and looking to see that the coils of the rope were free. With a nod Mr. Gibson ordered the oars brought inboard and he pulled in the long steering oar himself. The whaleboat shot close up to the whale’s side. The body loomed beside us like the rolling hull of an unballasted ship.
With my face over my shoulder I watched old Tom poise the iron. When he swung it back the muscles of his shoulder and upper arm flexed like a pugilist’s! He was a fit subject for a statue at that instant. Then he flung body and weapon forward, the latter left his hand smoothly, and the sabre-sharp point sunk deep in the yielding blubber.
“Back all!” gasped Ben Gibson, scarcely above his breath, so excited was he.
But we had expected the order and were ready for it. The oars went in with unanimity and the boat shot back, for a whaleboat is as sharp at one end as it is at the other.
The whale made no flurry, however. It was as though he lay stunned for half a minute—perhaps longer. Then he made up his mind what to do, and he did it with a promptness and speed that was amazing.