Mr. Baker did not seem to think it funny. He had stopped his flow of profanity, whether because he had exhausted his stock, or because his choicest gems were inadequate, I could not guess; and now, standing in his place in the bow like a gaunt statue of a man, silent and motionless, he watched the Battles grow rapidly, and the foam under her forefoot, and the men upon her deck. He held his lance loosely in his hand, the shank resting on the gunwale. If she had shown any sign of changing her course, I knew that he would have ordered his crew to pull hard for her, in the hope of boarding her before she got away. She did not; and there is no sense in hard pulling to meet a vessel which is coming to meet you as straight and as fast as she can. And, although Mr. Baker was holding his lance loosely, I knew that his great fist would grip it hard at the slightest provocation.
At last the Battles put her helm down, slacked off her sheets, backed one topsail, and hung there, almost near enough for us to heave a line aboard of her. No one on her hailed us, but some of her men were standing at the rail like wooden images, watching us, while others were going lazily aloft. By this time our whale had spouted his last spout, and lay quiet in the sea, with our irons still in him and our line fast to them. Mr. Baker’s men had their oars in the water, and his boat seemed to be drifting toward the Battles. I saw Mr. Wallet and another standing by the man at the wheel. I could see even his feeble smile and his pale blue eyes and his tight curling hair, almost like a negro’s but for the color. Mr. Wallet’s was sandy, with a reddish tinge, like brown sandstone; some of our men had called his hair his brownstone front. When he saw Mr. Baker’s boat drifting toward them, he moved uneasily, his smile faded, and he spoke to the man standing with him. He knew Mr. Baker of old.
Mr. Baker did not wait to get there. “If you try to steal this whale,” he shouted, “why, damn your souls, there ’ll be blood spilled.”
The man to whom Mr. Wallet had spoken was leaning on the rail. He laughed. “There ’s been blood spilled already, ain’t there? Seems to me I see it on your lance.”
“That ’s good clean blood of a whale!” retorted Mr. Baker. “There ’s other blood waiting that ain’t so clean. I ’d hate to dirty a good lance with it.”
“Cheap talk!” said the other contemptuously. “We don’t steal whales.”
The boat was now within an oar’s length of the side of the Battles.
“I ’m coming aboard,” said Mr. Baker, “to see Cap’n Coffin about it—and about another matter.”
“You can’t see Cap’n Coffin,” replied the other, who seemed to be one of the mates, and in command of the vessel at the moment, “and you don’t come aboard of us. Sheer off there!”
A number of the men at the rail of the Battles showed themselves to have spades in their hands. They put the spades over the side, and held them suspended there.