"Never mind, Mr. Russell, try him again!" said our captain. "Here's spare oars, if you want, pick 'em up, all round here. Hold on a bit, though; let Swain have a try, he's got the chance now."
The mate of the Fortitude was one of those long-limbed, powerful men, who seemed to have been built expressly to "straighten ten fathom of lance-wrap and do execution." He was wary too, in his approach, and waited for what he thought was a "good time in." He hurled his iron when four fathoms distant, and put it well in, calling, "Stern, stern hard!" As he drew back his lance for a long dart, it seemed to me impossible that he could reach him, as he poised it in his hands, still backing with his oars. When he judged himself at a safe distance, it sped for its mark with a momentum that was positively fearful. He drew it back; a quiver was perceptible in the sides of the vast body of the monster who had fought so valiantly for his life; and thirty-six voices greeted the thick clots of blood now faintly gushing from his spout-hole, with glad shouts of victory.
"He's throwing up the sponge," said Mr. Swain, quietly. "A child can take care of him now."
We picked up and secured the wrecks of our boats and gear, while the whale was hauled alongside the Fortitude. It was agreed that Captain Wyer should cut and boil him, and we would divide the oil in Talcahuana, as we both expected to be there soon. We bought a boat of the Fortitude, rigged the spare one overhead, and thus were enabled to lower the complement of three. We stretched across to Massafuera and back, cruising between the two islands, till one more large whale rewarded our efforts; and bore away for the rendezvous, our consort having left the ground the day before. The cooper had added one to his stock of yarns which would require but little embellishment to make it marvellous. Mr. Grafton and Fisher were converts to the "eating whale" theory; and "the doctor" listened with delight as we rehearsed the incidents of the capture of "the Juan Fernandez whale;" displaying, as he listened, an array of ivory almost as formidable as that of the redoubtable whale himself.
CHAPTER XIII.
TALCAHUANA.
We passed the Fortitude, tack and tack, beating up to the anchorage of Talcahuana, and let go our anchors nearly at the same moment. Fifty-five barrels was our share of "the Juan Fernandez whale," which made us up to two hundred and thirty, all told; not so bad a start, as we were hardly five months from home.
Talcahuana, or "Turkeywarner," as old Jeff and the cook persisted in Anglicizing the name, is like many other places on the Spanish Main, merely the port to a large city; the cities along this coast being pushed up into mountains, at a considerable distance from the seaboard. The place itself is not much to look at, or to discourse about. A description would present no points of marked interest to the general reader, and what whaleman needs a description of Talcahuana?