“Pull!” I yelled.
And although I had no business to give a command, the men obeyed me and the boat shot forward again. I seized our second mate by his shirt collar. In a moment I had lifted him into the boat.
At the same moment Tom Anderly got forward, seized the gun which poor Gibson had dropped, and sent a bomb-lance into the whale at so short a distance that it seemed as though we might have touched him by putting out a hand.
But that fighting whale died hard. It leaped after the bomb exploded and again we were almost overturned.
“Cut loose! Let the beast go!” cried some of the men.
But Tom Anderly would not lift the boat hatchet. To cut a whale free, unless it becomes absolutely necessary, is “against the religion” of any old whaler. As for myself, I was bending over the injured second mate, trying to revive him.
Ben Gibson had been through a most awful experience. Old Cap’n Wood, of Nantucket, had been in the mouth of a whale, and lived to tell the story. I remembered of reading about his experience. But it was a most awful accident and I feared indeed that the young officer was dead.
Therefore I was not really cognizant of what was going on until half the crew of our boat began to shriek a multitude of commands and advice. Then I looked up and saw that the bull whale for a second time was charging the Scarboro.
It was plain the old fellow realized that the bark was his enemy. He paid no attention to the boat that was tearing through the sea behind him. And we was so near the bark now that nothing could be done to swerve the the fighting whale!
Straight on dashed the big bull, at a speed that snubbed the whaleboat’s nose under water, for we were close up to the beast. Straight on, with tremendous headway and a fearful, gathering momentum, headed for the grimy, battle-scarred broadside of the old Scarboro. Those aboard of the bark could do nothing. She was still hove to. The fighting whale had missed her by a hand’s breadth once before, but this time he did not swerve.