A Year with a Whaler

by Walter Noble Burns

And as the boat glanced against that island of living ebony, Louis's harpoon sank deep into the soft, buttery mass. We heard the tiny concussion of the cap of the tonite gun, and a fraction of a second later the bomb exploded with a muffled roar in the whale's vitals.

"Stern, stern!" shouted Gabriel. "Stern for your lives!"

We backed water as hard as we could. The great back went flashing down, the mighty tail rose up directly over us, shutting out the sky. It curled over away from us and smote the sea with deafening thunder. As quick as lightning it rose into the air again, curled high above us with tragic menace, and came crashing down, this time toward us. But we had backed just out of harm's way. Death and that terrible tail missed us by about three feet.

The mate's boat came rushing up. It was too late. The whale—our whale—had sounded.

"Your boat can beat us, eh?" Gabriel called tauntingly to Mr. Winchester. "Not much. I know we break blackskin first. I know we win dat race."

Our line began to dance and sing, leaping up from its neatly laid coils in the tub in dizzy spirals and humming out over the bow.

"Ha, boys," sang out Kaiuli, our Kanaka bow oarsman. "Now for fine ride behind Arctic race horse—eh?"

With a whale harnessed to our boat and a sea as smooth as any turnpike for our highway, we settled ourselves for the ride. The friction of the line set the boat going. It gathered momentum. In a little while we were tearing along through that sea of oil, our bow deep in the smother as the whale pulled down upon it, and flashing walls of white spray flaring out on either side.

The other boats pulled for the point at which it seemed most probable the whale would come up. When it rose to the surface, the mate's boat was nearest.

"Lay me on four seas off and I'll get him," we heard Long John shout to Mr. Winchester. The mate did just that. The whale was up but a moment and Long John tried for it, but it was too long a dart, and his harpoon fell into the sea. Before he had recovered his iron we had shot past. When the whale rose again, we bumped out of water on its body. A second harpoon drove home in its back, a second bomb exploded in its insides. A great shudder seized the monster. The water foamed white with its throes. Then everything grew still. Slowly the great body rolled over, belly up.