Chapter 12

IN WHICH I AM A TERRIFIED WITNESS OF A WONDERFUL PHENOMENON

Evening was dropping down and I was woefully hungry. Being sure that the Wavecrest was safely moored to the body of the dead leviathan, I set about correcting the need which preyed upon me. I was thankful, indeed, that I had stocked my larder so well on that last day at Bolderhead. There was plenty of water, too. I could ride out a week's storm here beside the whale I was very sure, and then have plenty of provisions to serve me until I could beat back to the mainland.

I got out my lanterns, filled and trimmed them, and cutting steps in the side of the whale with the boat-hatchet, I mounted to the top of the great body and there stuck my oar upright in the blubber and hung a lantern to it. I was pretty sure that no vessel would pass that signal light without investigating, even in the gale.

I made a very comfortable supper indeed. I managed now to force the cabin door and closed the sliding hatch. Then I warmed the cabin well with the spirit stove, stripped off my wet clothes, and got into dry garments. I went out on deck at nine o'clock, saw that my moorings were fast and the lanterns burning brightly, and then turned in. After the uncertainties of the day and the lack of sleep suffered the night before, I slept as soundly when I now turned in on one of the bunks as ever I did in my own bed at home!

At daybreak--another drab dawning of the new day--I was up and climbed the whale for the lantern. In its place I left attached to the upright oar a shirt to flutter in the wind for a signal. I hoped that any vessel passing near enough to see my signal would stop for me. But of one thing I was sure: If it chanced that a whaling ship came within sight of the dead leviathan my peril would soon be over. This huge beast had not been long dead and it would be all clear gain to any "blubber boiler" that chanced to pass that way.

Nor was the possibility of being rescued by a whaleship so slight as it would have been a few years before. There were for two decades, few whaling barks put forth from the New England ports; but of late years there is either a greater demand for whale-oil, or the cachelot (the sperm whale) is becoming more frequently seen both in northern and southern seas, and is being hunted both by steam vessels and by the old-time whaling ships.

I didn't know where I was--that is, my position in the North Atlantic; but I believed that I had sailed so far and so fast in the sloop that I was about midway of the course of the British steam lines running 'twixt Halifax and the Bermudas. Those two ports are between seven and eight hundred miles apart, and I suspected I was nearer one or the other than I was to Boston! I knew I had done some tall sailing since being swept out of Bolderhead Harbor.

After having cooked and eaten a hearty breakfast, despite the blowing of the gale--for dirty weather prevailed and rain swept down in torrents every hour or two--I set about making such slight repairs as I could with the tools and materials I had at hand. And while thus engaged I made a discovery that--to say the least--startled me.

Dragging over the bows of the Wavecrest was the cable by which she had been moored in Bolderhead Harbor. I had never chanced to draw it aboard. Now I did so. It was only a bit, some three or four feet long. And instead of finding it frayed and broken by the strain of the sloop as she dragged at her old anchorage, I found that the hemp had been cut sharply across. Nothing less than a knife--and a sharp one--had severed that cable when it was taut!

The appearance of the bit of rope gave me such a jolt that I sat down and stared at it. I had been quite sure that Paul Downes and his friends knew I was aboard the Wavecrest when they nailed me into the cabin. But it really never crossed my mind that they had deliberately cut the sloop adrift. But here was evidence of the crime. There was no doubting it. I had been imprisoned on the Wavecrest and then the sloop was sent on a voyage which Paul and his friends must have realized could end in nothing less than death.

It was an awful thought. In sudden and uncontrollable anger my cousin had attempted to stab me when we had our unfortunate quarrel aboard the sloop; but this crime was far greater than his former attempt. He had deliberately planned my death.

And if Ham Mayberry, or any of my other friends, took the pains to look at the Wavecrest's mooring cable, they would know that the sloop had been cut adrift. The evidence lay in both pieces of the cable.

Perhaps, however, it would not be known--it might never be suspected, indeed--that I had been swept out to sea in the sloop. The mere fact that I had left my tender tied to the mooring buoy might not be understood. Beside, the tender might have been cut adrift, too. Or the gale might have done much havoc in Bolderhead Inlet. Other craft could easily have been strewn along the rocky shores, or carried--like the Wavecrest--out into the open sea.

The mystery of my disappearance might never be explained--until I returned home. And when would I get back? I did not like to think of this. I worried over the effect my disappearance would have upon my mother's mind. And, while I was absent, Mr. Chester Downes would have full swing.

Worried as I was because of my situation, here in the seemingly empty Atlantic, my greatest anxiety was for my mother. More and more had I come to fear the evil machinations of Mr. Chester Downes. While I had been on hand to defend mother from her brother-in-law--and defend her from her own innocent belief in him, as well!--I was but mildly disturbed. If worse came to worse, I could always write to Lawyer Hounsditch whom I believed would never see my mother cheated.

But now--and God only knew for how long a time--it was beyond my power to do a single thing toward guarding my mother from Chester Downes. How I wish I had taken the old attorney of the Darringford Estate into my confidence before this time!

These were some of my sad thoughts following the discovery of the severed cable. I remained in a very, very low state of mind indeed during that forenoon. The gale did not abate; nothing but the boisterous sea and the overcast sky could I see about me. Not even a seabird came to the dead whale. I was alone--stark alone.

At mid-afternoon, however, I sighted something to the southward. I had climbed to the top of the whale for a better observation and against the horizon I beheld a long ribbon of smoke--just a faint streak against the lighter colored clouds. I knew that a steamer was there; but she was far, far away, and would never sight the whale, or my fluttering signal.

I thought of all manner of curious plans to attract attention to my plight from a long distance over the sea. Fire was my main thought. I knew that no vessel--scarcely a mail-carrying steamship--would pass a fire at sea without investigation. Had I been a modern Munchausen I might have found some way of drawing a wick through the whale and setting fire to its blubber!

As it was, had I been likely to run short of burning fluid I surely would have endeavored to "try out" some of the blubber. I knew that, before the day of mineral oil--kerosene--people used whale oil almost altogether for lamps. But I was fortunately well supplied with oil, water and food. I might ward off starvation for a month; but I was not at all sure that I wished to exist so long under the then prevailing conditions.

But life is very sweet to us, and I suppose I should have clung to the last shred of mine had Fate intended me to remain in this abandoned state so long. This day and another night passed. I went to bed and slept well. The whale's carcass might roll over and crush my boat, or some other accident happen to the Wavecrest during my retirement. But I could do nothing to fend off Fate did I keep awake and had already made up my mind that I had little to fear.

As for the whale sinking again, that was impossible. It may have sunk after being killed; but putrefaction had set in within the carcass and the gases which had thereby formed would keep the whale afloat until the fish and seabirds had stripped its bones, in great part at least.

With the returning day the clouds broke. I had noted before arising that the gale was subsiding. The sun showed his face and I welcomed him enthusiastically. The sea did not subside however. I could not think of leaving my sure haven yet. It did not look exactly like settled weather but the sun shone warmly for part of that forenoon.

Before noon several screaming gulls had found the dead whale and were circling around it, gaining courage to attack. The presence of the sloop moored to it bothered them at first. But in a few hours there were other scavengers of the sea at hand which were afraid of nothing. I sighted the first ugly fin soon after eating my dinner. Then another, and another and another appeared, and soon the voracious sharks were tearing at the whale from beneath while the increasing number of seabirds were hovering and fighting above the carcass.

Both the finned and winged denizens of the sea became so fearless that I could have stroked the sides of the sharks with my hand or got upon the whale and knocked the birds over with a club. Blood as well as oil ran from the great carcass and the sea was soon streaked all around with foulness. A dreadful stench began to be apparent, too. The fetid gasses from the abdominal cavity of the dead creature were escaping.

But I could not afford to change my anchorage just for a bad smell! Anxious as I was to get home again, I dared not start for land yet awhile. I must wait for a fair wind and the promise of a spell of steady weather. I knew that by heading into the northwest I must reach the New England coast if I sailed far enough; but otherwise I was quite ignorant of my position. Having a nicely drawn chart in my chest did not help me in the least now, for I did not know my position and had no means of learning it had I been a navigator.

This day passed likewise and an uncertain, windy night was ushered in. I set my lantern again on the whale's back, the birds having become less troublesome; but determined to keep watch for part of the night, at least. To this end I rolled myself in my blanket and lay down on the bench at the stern. The clouds still fled across the skies, harried by the wind; and the wind itself fluctuated, wheeling around to various points of the compass within a short hour.

I fell asleep occasionally and finally, before dawn, descended into a heavy slumber. I don't know what awoke me. The wind was whining very strangely through the sloop's standing rigging. My oar had tumbled down and oar and lantern were in the sea. The birds had all disappeared, nor were the fins of the sharks visible. Off to the south'ard was a strange, copper colored bank of cloud. The east was streaked lividly, for it was all but sunrise.

I rose and stretched, yawning loudly. I suddenly felt a prickling sensation all over me. I knew that the air must be strongly impregnated with electricity. Despite the whining of the wind here beside the dead whale there seemed to have fallen a calm.

I scrambled up the side of the whale and turned to look northward. Glory! Within five miles was a bark, under full sail, coming down upon me--a vision of rescue that brought the stinging tear-drops to my eyes. I was saved.

I did not care for the oar and the lost lantern now. I stood there and waved the coat that I had dragged off at first sight of the vessel. I knew her company must see me. I was as positive of rescue as of anything in the world. The bark was flying before a stiff breeze, and it was head on to the whale. I could not be missed.

Although the on-coming ship sailed so proudly, however, the breeze that filled her canvas did not breathe upon my cheek. Nor was it the whining of that favoring wind I had heard since first opening my eyes. I swung about suddenly and looked to the south. Up from that direction rolled the copper colored cloud--and it seemed veritably to roll along the surface of the sea.

The sound came from this cloud. Before it the sea itself turned white. Far above, the upper reaches of the rolling mist seemed to writhe as though in travail of some great phenomenon. And it was so! Out of this mass of vapor I saw born within the hour the most remarkable of all sea-spells.

But at first my attention was divided between the tornado coming up from the south and the bark approaching from the north. Not at once did the favoring wind leave the craft. Where the dead whale lay seemed to be a belt of calm between the bark and the coming tornado. And this craft in which my hope was set was really a bark, by the way; I do not use the word poetically. Her fore and mainmasts were square rigged while her mizzen mast was rigged fore and aft like my little Wavecrest.

As I watched her I saw that her navigator had espied the coming tempest from the south and the crew began to swarm among the sails. She still came on at a spanking pace; but her canvas was reefed down rapidly until there was nothing left but the foretopsail, flying jib and the spanker. Soon these began to shake and then her fair wind left her entirely. She had reached the belt of calm in which the dead whale and my sloop still lay.

In my ears the savage voice from the cloud to the south'ard was now a roar. The remaining canvas on the bark was reefed down. She lay waiting for the tempest. I turned to descend from my rather slippery situation. I preferred to be in the sloop when the tempest struck us, for possibly I would be obliged to cast off from the dead mammal.

But before I could get off the whale the writhing cloud changed its appearance--and changed so rapidly that I was held spellbound. It was sweeping over the seas so close, it seemed that the topmasts of the bark could not have cleared it. Now whirling tongues of cloud shot downward while dozens of spiral columns of water leaped up to meet these gyrating tongues. Thus sucked up by the whirling cloud the waterspouts were formed, and dozens of them swept on across the sea beneath the hovering cloud.

As the cloud advanced the wind which accompanied it beat the waves flat. But they boiled about the waterspouts and the roaring sound increased rapidly. The heavens above and to the north and east grew dark. The rising sun seemed snuffed out. A vivid glare which was neither sunlight nor starlight accompanied the tempest as it swept on.

I trembled at the sight and as the seconds passed I grew more terrified--and for good reason. What would happen to me if any of those whirling columns of water and mist struck the dead whale? If they burst upon the drifting mammal where would I be? What would happen to the Wavecrest?

And then quite suddenly there came a change in the on-rushing tornado. Amid thunderous reports--like nothing so much as the explosions of great guns--the dozens of small spouts ran together, or were quenched as it might be, in one huge, whirling column of water which, swept on by the wind, charged down upon me as though aiming at my particular destruction.

I fell upon my knees and clung with both hands to the slot I had cut in the whale's blubber in to which to thrust the oar. I dug my fingers into the greasy flesh and hung on for dear life. I actually expected that the whale--and of course my sloop--would be overwhelmed.

The waterspout, traveling with the speed of an express train, bore down upon me. With it came the wind, roaring deafeningly. I lost all other sound, with such enormous confusion the tornado swept upon me. The whale rolled as though it had come to sudden life again.

Over and over it canted. I know my sloop was lifted completely out of the sea. The waterspout whirled past--within three cable-lengths of the dead leviathan,--and the tempest shrieked after. The whale rolled back. I slid down the curve of the carcass and dropped into my plunging sloop. I feared to remain longer near the dead whale, but cast off both at bow and stern, and let the sea carry me some yards from the heaving, rolling carcass.

And then I could once more see the waterspout. It was still careening over the sea, its general direction being nor'west; but it whirled so that it was quite impossible to be sure of its exact direction.

However, of one thing I was confident. The sailing vessel which I had so joyfully discovered an hour ago, lay in the track of the waterspout. She lay still becalmed and if the spout threatened to board her, there would be no possible chance of the vessel's escaping destruction.