“Why,” I said, “what could happen to him—on his own vessel?”
“Anything,” Starbuck answered. “Anything at all. Ever hear the story of the ship Junior and Cap’n Arch Mellen? It happened in fifty-eight, or fifty-seven, but it ’s all true, and it might happen now—any time, unless men’s hearts are changed.”
“Tell me,” I said eagerly. “I never heard of it; I never even heard of the ship Junior.”
He smiled down at me; after all, not so much down, for I was nearly as tall as he.
“There ’s a good many ships you never heard of, I guess. I ’ll tell you the story of the ship Junior, the first chance I get. The boats are coming back now, and I want to get into dry clothes.”
By the time the boats were on the davits the Battles was more than hull down to the southward, and was fast sinking her topsails.
CHAPTER XXI
We cleared up our whale as soon as we could. He made only thirty-three barrels, and we laid our course for the Cape with a total of three hundred and thirty-five barrels of oil in the hold. That seemed very little to show for nine months’ work, but Peter comforted me somewhat. He did not seem to mind. It was all in the day’s work to him.
“I know, Timmie, lad,” he said. “Whales have got scarce as hen’s teeth in the Atlantic Ocean. But the whaling fleet ’s not what it was fifteen years ago when there were over three hundred vessels hailing from New Bedford. Give the whales thirty years or so, and they ’ll be back there. We ’ll find plenty on the New Zealand grounds or off Japan, or some other nice quiet place. We ’ll have a full ship yet, but it may take us three years more.”
The fact that we had little oil to show did not bother me very much. I would have kept on with a contented spirit if we had not had any oil. It was not for a few barrels of oil that I had embarked on this cruise.