She Blows! And Sparm at That!

by William John Hopkins

That was not the end of misfortune. The frayed end of line from Mr. Brown’s boat was not completely hauled in, and there were some fathoms still hanging down from the bow. The whale caught this frayed end between his jaws as he passed, and worried it as a terrier does a string. The effect was the same as if it had still been fast to the iron in his body. The line tautened instantly, and whirled the bow around, and then, as no attention was being given to the loggerhead end of a frayed line with a few fathoms over the bow, it began to snake out of its tub. I do not know how it happened—nobody knew—but Wright somehow got a kink in the line around his leg, and was snaked the length of the boat, kicking three men in the head on his meteoric course and out at the bow. Mr. Brown and Wright had been in the habit of doing without the kicking-strap. I have explained the kicking-strap. It is a piece of heavy line which extends loosely along the top of the clumsy cleat, and has its ends knotted under. The whale line passes under it on its way to the groove in the stem. There was nothing, therefore, to stop Wright except the frail peg in the stem, and breaking the peg was nothing to him. He disappeared overboard.

Everybody in the boat had given him up when, suddenly, the line went slack, and Wright shot to the surface. He had somehow managed to whip out his knife and cut the line. They got him aboard the boat at once. It was very nearly the end of poor Wright. He was in great pain and almost done, his hip dislocated, although no bones were broken.

That was about the end of the whale. He went on for a little way, enveloped by the twisting lines. Then he stopped, shivered once more, and went into his flurry, spouting thick, black blood. That flurry, as I think of it now, could not have been pleasant to see, but I do not remember that it aroused any disgust in me at the time. It was not far from the ship, and I can only recollect a consuming curiosity, on my part, to see him die, and how he did it. It could not have differed very much, except in the size of the beast, from the scenes at John Green’s slaughter-house.

When the whale was alongside, and the cutting-in was under way, we found that one eye was sightless and almost gone. This may have been due to fighting, as the twisted jaw was supposed to be due to that cause. I examined the jaw carefully when it was on deck, as did most of the crew. The tip of the jaw was bent sidewise, about two feet of it. It was a mystery to me, and ever since has remained a mystery, how the jawbone of a full-grown whale could be so bent. I could understand how it might be broken, but to be bent as this was, or to be curled around in a spiral, as was the case in our later specimen, it seemed to me that it would have had to be done while the whale was young, and the bone soft and cartilaginous. I could not imagine whales of that tender age fighting fiercely enough to bend a jaw or put out an eye, and I should be convinced—as to the bending of the jaw—only by actually seeing the jaw of a whale bent in a fight with another whale. It might be sufficient if I heard of such an occurrence from a man in whose powers of observation and in whose veracity I had absolute confidence; but who would believe the yarn of the average whaleman? Whalemen are notoriously inaccurate observers, anyway.

This whale was an old one, rather old for a whale, although by no means decrepit. What that means in years of life I do not know. The natural life of a whale, barring accidents, would be expected to be of the same order as the life of an elephant, which is popularly believed to live to a great age, from one hundred to three hundred years. I should think that a whale three hundred years old would yield little oil; and this whale of ours made nearly sixty barrels.

Poor Wright! We had no surgeon, of course, better than the captain and Mr. Wallet. Wallet was a whale-surgeon. Wright was in great pain for over a week, until we got into Fayal, and his thigh swelled to great size. I used to hear him groaning at night in a subdued fashion.

CHAPTER XIV

We sighted no more whales, and made for the Azores as fast as the old Clearchus would go, which was not at a dizzying speed. Wright was in such distress that the old man was anxious to get him ashore as soon as possible. He intended to call at Fayal, anyway. In addition to Wright’s necessities, there was some slight refitting to be attended to, he wanted another spare whaleboat, some oars, provisions, and other small matters. He expected to meet the tender there, too. The tender of the whaling fleet was a schooner, not what would be called fast, but faster than any whaler. She would take home the little oil we had, would have letters written since we left, and would take whatever letters we had to send. I wrote up my journal fully, and wrote letters to my father and my mother. I did not seal these, but left them to be added to at the last minute.

That whale led indirectly to an adventure of my own. I have spoken of the practical joke which a green hand tried to play on Black Tony, “The Prince,” as we all called him. The green hand was Lupo, a Portuguese who pulled midship oar in Mr. Brown’s boat, in which the Prince had the bow oar. I do not know the real cause of the attempt, and it is not important, but probably jealousy was at the bottom of it. There was real malice in it, although Lupo meant that it should pass for a joke. It happened just at twilight. I did not see the whole of it, only the Prince standing on the rail, the sharp spade in his hand instinctively raised to strike, his head up, the most utter contempt in his gaze, as he looked down at Lupo from under half-closed eyelids. He reminded me of a tiger, and very probably he reminded Lupo of one, too. Lupo was paralyzed with fear. The Prince smiled slowly and contemptuously, and slowly lowered the spade, but said nothing, and Lupo moved. He passed near me—I was in the shadow of the foremast—muttering curses and threats as he went.

After that I was on the watch for them both, and about an hour later I saw them. The Prince seemed to have forgotten Lupo’s existence, but I had not, and I kept in the shadow and watched him closely, as he edged nearer and nearer to the place where the Prince was working. We were trying-out, and everybody was busy. Lupo himself was supposed to be busy. He kept one hand back by his hip—on a knife, as it turned out—and in the other hand he carried either a mincing-knife or a boarding-knife. The light was too poor and uncertain for me to be sure which it was, but either was a formidable weapon. I remember just the feeling I had at the roots of my hair, and the prickling all over my body, and the way I smiled, for I found myself about to leap on him. I did not make up my mind to do it, I simply found that I was going to do it, and I was filled with an exaltation of joy at the knowledge. Call it what you will and explain it how you may, it was pure joy of a kind that I have known many times since, but never equal to that first time.