“You’re all right, boy,” it said. “Ye didn’t jump out, and ye kept your oar a-goin’. Ye’ll make a whaleman ’fore many days, an’ a good one, too. He’s soundin’ now, but he’ll come up dead. The Kanaka put the bomb into him right. He’s our whale.”
The rush of the line slackened and then ceased, and they began to take in on it. A long time they pulled steadily, and at last the black bulk showed in the wash of the dancing waves on the surface, the nerveless flipper swaying in the swell, and blood flowing from the spout-hole. Joe and Harry had captured their first whale in regulation fashion, and two prouder boys it would be hard to find. A hole was cut in the gristle of the great flukes, and the work of towing the monster to the ship was begun. Harry could not put much strength into his stroke at first, he was too weak with the reaction from the excitement, but he soon recovered from this and tugged away manfully.
A little way ahead of them was the first mate’s boat with an equally large capture in tow; astern was the captain’s boat, which had failed to make fast, and which soon pulled in to their assistance; but the boatswain was having the greatest adventure of them all. He had made fast to a good-sized whale, which had immediately become gallied, and without waiting to be reached by bomb gun or lance had started out at a terrific pace, headed apparently for the north pole. The boat was already almost out of sight in the distance and diminishing steadily in size. By and by it grew no smaller, but gradually moved along the horizon, proving that the tow had changed its course. Indeed, it seems to be well established that a frightened whale runs in a circle, though generally a very large one. This particular bowhead had done this, though his circle was much smaller than many would have made. Thus it happened that when the two whales which the first mate’s boat and Joe’s had struck were alongside, the boatswain’s was looming large on the horizon again and approaching rapidly. The circle which his whale had taken seemed to include the position of the ship in a part of its circumference. With strength and vivacity quite unusual for a bowhead, the monster kept up the pace, and had thus far frustrated the boat’s attempts to close up and kill. The boatswain, seeing that the whale was towing them toward the ship again, had ceased to attempt it, confident that even such a wonder of a pace-setter would finally tire, and wishing to be as near the ship as possible when the final stroke was made. Much attention to the race was given by those aboard, and Harry had an uneasy feeling that the monster, even though a proverbially timid bowhead, was bent on wreaking vengeance on the ship. If the huge creature should hurl himself against it at the pace at which he was coming, the result would be wreck beyond a doubt.
On he came at a great rate, ploughing through the water like a torpedo boat, the boatswain now straining every nerve to get up with him, but when the whale was within an eighth of a mile, there was an unexpected interference. He swerved to the right, again to the left, sounded and then breached, and the next moment a mottled black and white orca flung itself into the air, turned end over end, and came down with a tremendous thud in the middle of the bowhead’s back.
A strange groaning bellow came from the whale, but he plunged on desperately. Again the orca launched its twenty-five feet of length into the air and came down on the poor bowhead; and now another appeared, and the two alternately beat the frenzied and exhausted whale till it apparently had what little breath there was left hammered out of its body. Right alongside he gave up the fight and rolled motionless on the surface. The bellow had already subsided to a moan; this was followed by a gasp or two, and the bowhead ceased to breathe, turned on his side with the flipper in the air, dead before the boat could get alongside and finish the matter. The orcas had literally hammered the exhausted whale to death, and were now tearing at his lip to get his mouth open and devour the soft, spongy tongue, which is their chief delight. They seemed to pay no attention to the ship or the boat, and Harry had a good opportunity to see the behavior of these wild wolves of the sea before the boatswain, with much indignation, lanced them both to death.
“You’ll try to eat up my whale, will you, you blasted davy devils! Take that—and that—and that!” and with every “that” the keen lance searched the vitals of the gnawing orcas.
One died still voraciously tearing at the whale’s under lip, but the other turned at the blow of the lance and bit at what had stung it, taking the bow of the boat in its jaws and crushing and shaking it in the final agony as a terrier might worry a cat. The great teeth crunched the wood, and the men, with cries of terror, were shaken out of the boat, but luckily none were caught in the grasp of the jaws. The lance-thrust was deadly, and in a moment the orcas lay, belly up, beside the dead whale. The men were so near the side of the ship that ropes were thrown to them and they clambered aboard, after some trouble to save the gear and the crushed boat, which was towed alongside and hoisted on deck.
Thus ended the first adventure with a school of bowheads in the Arctic. Not so badly, though the whales had been much more lively and the events far more exciting than is common in the pursuit of this gentlest of cetaceans. A week of calm, warm weather followed, and at the end of that time the three whales were cut in, the blubber tried out, and the oil stowed away, together with three good heads of bone, making a fine beginning of what bade fair to be a very prosperous summer cruise.