She Blows! And Sparm at That!

by William John Hopkins

“White water!” he said. “He ’s fast.”

I, for one, was glad. It is no play to pull a whaleboat into the teeth of such a sea and wind as there was then.

“She spouts thin blood,” he added, a moment later. “Sounded.”

We took it easy after that, and soon came up with Mr. Tilton. The whale had sounded out all his line before we got there, and the ship was hull down to leeward, but coming as fast as she could.

There was nothing to do but to wait. The whale must have gone down at a terrific rate, and he had gone straight down, for he came up in fifteen or twenty minutes, and a short distance ahead of us. We pulled frantically. Just as I saw the huge body beginning to show at the corner of my eye, half awash, the Prince darted with all his strength, both irons, with great rapidity. At the same moment Mr. Brown hove mightily upon the steering oar, to lay the boat around, crying out to the Prince to take the lance to him. The boat responded, and for a brief interval we ran with the whale, the starboard oars against the gunwale, and I trying my best to get in the slack of the line before we began to fall astern, while Kane held my oar for me. The Prince had seized a lance almost before Mr. Brown had got the words out of his mouth, and had plunged it twice into the whale. Mr. Brown had given another twist to the steering oar, and we sheered off just as the flukes struck the water with a noise like a big gun and the effect of a cataract. I had let go the line and grabbed my oar again, and we just did get out of the way as the whale sounded, with a side cut of flukes.

He did not go deep enough to take out all our line, although he came near it; but we held him there, with the bow of the boat pulled down within a foot of the water, the stern raised a little, and every other sea breaking into the boat, which kept Kane and me bailing. Mr. Tilton came up, and he and Mr. Brown thought the whale done for; virtually dead. The whale did not rise, and at last Mr. Tilton pulled for the ship, which was coming up pretty fast, to get a new line.

Still we waited. The whale did not move. Mr. Tilton had boarded the ship, got his line, and shoved off again. We began to wonder if it was a dead whale that we had at the end of that line, and we all relaxed. The whale had been down an hour, and Mr. Tilton was not halfway to us, when the bow was suddenly released, and the stern fell back gently, with a little splash. The strain on the line had eased, and he was coming up. How fast he was coming, and where he would rise were questions of some interest, but no more than that. He was a dead whale, or as good as dead.

I was aroused to something more than interest by the rasp of the whale’s teeth against the boat, and his jaw shot into the air, it seemed to me for fifty feet. As it passed me, I saw the tip of the jaw was curled around into a tight spiral. That spiral jaw fascinated me. I could not keep my eyes off it, and I did not think of the boat spade. There was no time to use it, anyway, even if I had thought of it. The whale had the boat fairly in his mouth, between the tub and the after oar, and he lost no time in closing, biting it cleanly in two. The water rushed in upon me, still sitting at my oar. I saw the stern sheets fall square with the whale’s snout, and Mr. Brown step off upon it and dive. Then the water closed over me for an instant; but I had not let go my oar, and I came to the surface, sputtering, and hugging the oar close. I do not remember that I was frightened, but my whole attention was occupied, and I did not know what was happening to the others, nor to myself, until I found myself on the bottom of the forward half of the boat. I have often wondered just how I got there.

As soon as I was in a condition to observe anything, I saw the whale feebly butting the stern of the boat from side to side, about fifteen feet away, while Black Man’el and Mr. Brown were swimming, Man’el as if he were hurt. I saw Mr. Brown help Man’el to the steering oar, which still swung there, and then the whale turned to our half of the boat. His butts were so feeble—no more than gentle pushes—that we had no difficulty in holding on; and, after pushing us about for two or three minutes, he very simply rolled over upon his side, fin out.

Mr. Tilton’s crew had seen our predicament, and had been pulling hard for us, and Mr. Macy had lowered from the ship. Mr. Tilton took us off. Black Man’el was the only one hurt. He had an ugly wound in his arm, which the whale’s teeth had caught and ripped from shoulder to elbow, but no bones were broken. I thought the boat was hopelessly stove, and of no further use to anybody, except for firewood; but Captain Nelson had Mr. Macy pick up the pieces, and Peter afterward made another boat of them.