“Never mind,” said the captain; “Harvey will hang on under the lee of the whale even if it does come on to blow harder, and he’ll be safe enough.”
At last, at about half-an-hour to midnight, we made out a faint light dead to windward. It took us some time to get up to it, for, though we were sure it must come from the mate’s boat, it didn’t approach us.
As we got near we could distinguish the people hanging to the bottom of the boat, one of them sitting astride of her and holding up a lantern. We immediately hove-to, and lowered a boat to take them on board. It then appeared that the boat had been stove in by a whale, when the mate and his men clung on to her, the whale fortunately not molesting them.
The boat’s lantern is always headed up tight in a keg, together with a tinder-box and candles, and having providentially secured the keg, they managed to open it, get out the lantern, and strike a light. We might otherwise have passed them in the dark, and they would all probably have perished, as we should have run back to pick up Mr Harvey’s boat and the whale we had killed. We now did so at once, and a hard night’s work we had of it, as we had to secure the whale alongside, and get ready for cutting-in as soon as it was day.
Soon after this, while I was aloft, I saw Jim, who had just been relieved at the wheel, go to the side, and, throwing off his clothes, jump overboard. It was what we often did, always taking care to leave a rope overboard to get up by, to get rid of the soot and grease, besides which, as we were close under the line, the weather was very hot, and a bath refreshing.
Jim swam some way ahead of the ship, when the cook, to play him a trick, hauled up his rope, which I didn’t perceive, as I was looking at Jim. Just then I caught sight of the fin of a shark at no great distance off. I shouted to Jim to come back, and he, knowing that I should not give a false alarm, struck out lustily for the ship. Mr Griffiths, who was on deck, seeing his danger, at once hove him another rope, and shouted at the top of his voice to keep the shark off. Still the monster came nearer and nearer. I saw Jim, to my great relief, get up to the side, but as he took hold of the rope, from its being covered with grease, it slipped through his fingers. The mate shouted to the other men on deck to come and assist him in hauling Jim up. I slid down on deck as fast as I could. On came the shark. Jim was still in the water, and I expected to see my old friend caught.
With all our strength we hauled at the rope, but still Jim couldn’t hold on by it, and I feared that it would slip through his fingers altogether, when, as it turned out, there was a knot at the end. This enabled him to hold on, and we hauled him up, more dead than alive from fright, just as the shark, showing the white of its belly, shoved its snout out of the water and made a snap at his feet, not six inches from them.
Jim was saved, and I never in my life felt more inclined to cry for joy than when I saw him out of danger. While the shark was still alongside looking for its prey, one of the Marquesas islanders who came on deck, taking a knife in his hand, leapt right down, feet first, on the monster’s back, which so scared it that away it went like a flash of lightning.
I have mentioned these circumstances just as they occurred to show the sort of life led by the crew of a whaler. I have more interesting events to narrate in the following chapters.