She Blows! And Sparm at That!

by William John Hopkins

“Dunno. How long ’ll it take to swim four miles? Two hours or better, I should think—if he makes it at all.”

The whispering drifted away. Within half an hour we saw lightning at a great distance to the northwest. It came nearer, and a little air puffed in our faces; increased to a gentle breeze. The thunder-storm did not strike us, but the breeze continued long enough for us to get away from the immediate neighborhood of the land. By the time the two hours were up, we were too far away to see a fire kindled on the beach, and I never knew whether poor Silver got safely to shore or not. I never saw him or heard of him again.

There was not the slightest effort made to get Silver back. Indeed, there was no chance unless the ship had been delayed for some days, for that was our last sight of the Seychelles. We stood away to the northward for the Arabian Sea, to cruise around there for some weeks, mostly in the northern part. One thing that Silver’s desertion did for me was to restore me to Mr. Brown’s boat. Smith was given Silver’s oar in Mr. Snow’s boat, whether at Mr. Brown’s request or not I did not know, but I thought not. It was not like Mr. Brown to make such a request, although he must have been glad of the change, even if Smith did pull a better oar than I. The vacancy in Mr. Macy’s boat ever since Silvia’s desertion at Cape Town had been filled by the sailmaker, who continued to fill it without much grumbling.

It was hot up there in the Arabian Sea, with the wind mostly from the northward—from the land—and many days of calm weather. There was no bad weather to speak of. We sighted spouts some half-dozen times, chased without result every time but two, hard pulling in a temperature that made the sweat pour off the men in rivers—except Smith. He seemed to be immune to any temperature that could be raised, and laughed at the men for sweating so. Mr. Snow’s opinion of him could only be guessed, but he seemed to have a great and growing respect for him, and he did not so much as bat an eyelid at him. This may have been due in part to his reputation as a thrower of a knife; a reputation which clung to him and which could not be ignored. You thought of it at once whenever you thought of Smith; could not dissociate the man from his reputation.

He rapidly became a favorite, and there was no reason why he should not. He was a superlatively good man in a boat, especially in that climate; he was always respectful, and while he was no boot-licker, he never forgot the deference which Snow liked. Snow was a little man, little in nature as in stature; and I have found little men to be generally more rigidly insistent upon the outward observance of forms than bigger men. There seems to be something in mere size which tends to a greater serenity, and to a scorn for such forms. So Snow was quite satisfied with outward observance.

We got three whales there, of moderate size. There was nothing remarkable about their capture, and they were put fin out with no more trouble than shooting a steer in a stall at Brighton. Two of them were alongside at one time, and sharks were so plentiful and so voracious—they are always that—that it was all we could do to save any of the blubber from the second whale. They had it almost stripped before we could get at it, in spite of our best efforts.

Our third whale was the cause of an incident which greatly amused everybody on board. We were in about latitude 12° N., longitude 60° E., nearly in the track of steamers to Bombay from the east coast of Africa. Our try-works was going full blast, sending up a huge column of black and oily smoke, which rose to a great height in the still air. It was very hot and quite calm, and the men, clad in nothing but shirts and old trousers—many of them had dispensed with the shirt—were sweating, cursing, and grumbling at the foul, sticky smoke, which choked them and made them look like coal-heavers or worse. Suddenly there was a cry of “Sail ho!” All, without stopping their work, followed the direction of the lookout, and gazed off to the southward. Pretty soon the smoke of a steamer appeared; then her stack, and then her upper works rose out of the sea. She was heading straight for us, and the belching smoke from her stack showed that she was crowding her furnaces. She continued to come on, straight for us, until she was perhaps four miles away, and we could see that she was no tramp, but a regular passenger steamer which ran to Bombay and ports farther east. At that distance she could see us clearly, without the possibility of making a mistake as to our character. She seemed to be seized with sudden disgust, made as quick a turn as she could, and stood off on her course to the northeast.

Many of the crew guffawed. “Thought we were afire,” one man said, “and found that we were nothing but a damned whaler. Could n’t be any worse,” he added, “if we were afire. That ’s the way I feel now.”

Peter was sorry. “Too bad that she made that mistake,” he said to me later. “Whalers do get afire sometimes, Timmie, and the smoke would n’t be very different. Other ships, too, as I know well, though the smoke of it ’s apt to be different. When her officers see a good deal of smoke again, they ’ll probably say it ’s only another damned whaler, and hold their course. There was a ship I sailed in once, carrying grain. It got afire somehow and smouldered for weeks.”

He seemed to have finished. I was impatient.