A Year with a Whaler

by Walter Noble Burns

"Where away?" shouted the captain, rushing from the cabin with his binoculars.

"Two points on the weather bow, sir," returned the lookout.

For a moment nothing was to be seen but an expanse of yeasty sea. Suddenly into the air shot a fountain of white water—slender, graceful, spreading into a bush of spray at the top. A great sperm was disporting among the white caps.

"Call all hands and clear away the boats," yelled the captain.

Larboard and waist boats were lowered from the davits. Their crews scrambled over the ship's side, the leg-o'-mutton sails were hoisted, and the boats, bending over as the wind caught them, sped away on the chase. The Night King went as boatsteerer of the waist boat. I saw him smiling to himself as he shook the kinks out of his tub-line and laid his harpoons in position in the bows—harpoons with no bomb-guns attached to the spear-shanks.

In the distance, a slow succession of fountains gleamed in the brilliant tropical sunshine like crystal lamps held aloft on fairy pillars. Suddenly the tell-tale beacons of spray went out. The whale had sounded. Over the sea, the boats quartered like baffled foxhounds to pick up the lost trail.

Between the ship and the boats, the whale came quietly to the surface at last and lay perfectly still, taking its ease, sunning itself and spouting lazily. The captain, perched in the ship's cross-trees, signalled its position with flags, using a code familiar to whalemen. The Night King caught the message first. He turned quickly to the boatheader at the tiller and pointed. Instantly the boat came about, the sailors shifted from one gunwale to the other, the big sail swung squarely out and filled. All hands settled themselves for the run to close quarters.

With thrilling interest, I watched the hunt from the ship's forward bulwarks, where I stood grasping a shroud to prevent pitching overboard. Down a long slant of wind, the boat ran free with the speed of a greyhound, a white plume of spray standing high on either bow. The Night King stood alert and cool, one foot on the bow seat, balancing a harpoon in his hands. The white background of the bellying sail threw his tense figure into relief. Swiftly, silently, the boat stole upon its quarry until but one long sea lay between. It rose upon the crest of the wave and poised there for an instant like some great white-winged bird of prey. Then sweeping down the green slope, it struck the whale bows-on and beached its keel out of the water on its glistening back. As it struck, the Night King let fly one harpoon and another, driving them home up to the wooden hafts with all the strength of his lithe arms.

The sharp bite of the iron in its vitals stirred the titanic mass of flesh and blood from perfect stillness into a frenzy of sudden movement that churned the water of the sea into white froth. The great head went under, the giant back curved down like the whirling surface of some mighty fly-wheel, the vast flukes, like some black demon's arm, shot into the air. Left and right and left again, the great tail thrashed, smiting the sea with thwacks which could have been heard for miles. It struck the boat glancingly with its bare tip, yet the blow stove a great hole in the bottom timbers, lifted the wreck high in air, and sent the sailors sprawling into the sea. Then the whale sped away with the speed of a limited express. It had not been vitally wounded. Over the distant horizon, it passed out of sight, blowing up against the sky fountains of clear water unmixed with blood.