Chapter 17

IN WHICH THERE IS SOME INFORMATION AND MUCH EXCITEMENT

The young second officer's command needed no repetition. There was no temptation for us to linger under the monster. With a crash that seemed to make sea and air tremble, the great body struck the surface of the water.

The whaleboat dashed back just in time, and then rocked upon the waves as the dying whale rolled to and fro in his "flurry." Then, with a great puff, the creature rolled partially on his side, and the ocean thereabout became tinged with the blood thrown out of its blow-hole.

"Killed with one lance! killed with one lance!" yelled Second Mate Gibson.

But then he gripped his dignity again and sat down, giving commands in his ordinary tone. Old Tom stood up to glance about the sea-scape: "And now where's that thundering old hooker?" he demanded. "We'll have a fine time pulling this baby to her."

But that is what we had to do. We had had our "fun;" now we settled down to doggedly pulling the heavy oars, being divided into two watches, and saw the light of the Scarboro's trying-out works at midnight! The Captain and Mr. Rudd had both got small whales and one had been laid aboard each side of the bark. The crew were working like gnomes in a pantomime when we rowed sadly to the bark with our huge tow. How we worked! I never had been so tired in my life, and at the end of the second day when the oil from the three whales had been run into the tanks and the decks cleared up again, I could have fallen into my hammock and slept the clock around. But one never catches up one's sleep on a successful whaler, and the Scarboro certainly was proving good her name as a "lucky" craft.

Between Tom Anderly and Ben Gibson I learned a lot about whaling statistics--famous voyages, wonderful accidents to whaling crews "lucky strikes," and the like. And these facts, both curious and exciting, I stowed away in my mind for future reference. Despite the fact that steam vessels and the gun and explosive bullet have almost supplanted the old-fashioned manner of killing whales, the luck and pluck of half a century, or more, ago, counted for enough to offset these new methods.

The most extraordinary good-luck voyage ever made by an American whaler was that of the bark Envoy, belonging to the Brownells of New Bedford. She was built in 1826 and in the year 1847 she returned to her then home port in such a condition that the underwriters refused to insure her for another voyage. But Captain William C. Brownell and Captain W. T. Walker agreed to take a chance in the old hulk and she put to sea from New Bedford under Captain Walker on July 12, 1848. As fitted for sea the Envoy, for repairs, supplies and all, stood the two owners in the sum of $8,000, whereas a vessel that could be insured might have cost from $40,000 to $60,000.

She got around the Horn without falling apart and took on a cargo of oil at Wytootackie which her captain had previously purchased from a wrecked whaler and stored there. This oil she hobbled into Manila with and shipped it to London at a profit of $9,000. From Manila the Envoy went cruising in the North Pacific and in fifty-five days she took 2,800 barrels of whale-oil and 40,000 pounds of baleen. With this she returned to Manila and shipped the bone and 1,800 barrels of oil to London, the shipment yielding $37,500 net.

Again she went cruising and secured 2,500 barrels of oil and 35,000 pounds of bone, bringing both into San Francisco in 1851, where she disposed of the oil for $73,450 and shipped the bone to her home port where it brought $12,500. To complete the record of her good luck, San Francisco merchants offered $6,000 for the condemned old bark that had, in two years, or thereabout, brought to her owners and venturesome crew the sum of $138,450.

With the captain's share as one-seventeenth of the "lay" the skipper of the Envoy must have made $8,000. "There were common sailors on that ship that turned up a thousand dollars in pocket when they were paid off," said Ben Gibson, when we were discussing it. "The second mate, with his one-forty-fifth, cleaned up three thousand. Hope I'll do half as well in the same length of time with the Scarboro."

I learned that the largest catch brought into port by an American whaler, as the result of a single cruise, included 5,300 barrels of oil and 200 barrels of sperm, with 50,000 pounds of bone. It was taken in a voyage lasting only 28 months by the South America, of Providence, Captain R. N. Sowle. It sold for $89,000 in 1849, and the cost of ship and outfit was $40,000.

The Pioneer, of New London, Captain Ebenezer Morgan, holds the medal for the largest sum realized from a single voyage. She left her home port on June 4, 1864, for Davis Strait and returned a year and three months later with a cargo of 1,391 barrels of oil and 22,650 pounds of bone, which sold at war-time prices for $150,000. The outfitting of this craft cost $35,000.

"Those are all great tales," quoth Tom Anderly, when we had marveled over these lucky voyages. "But how about the brig Emeline of New Bedford? She sailed on July 11, 1841 and in twenty-six months she returned home with how much ile d'you suppose?"

Ben and I gave it up. Some enormous sum, we supposed, was realized.

"Yah!" said Tom. "A fat lot. Twenty-six months and ten barrels of ile, and her skipper killed by a whale."

"Oh, now that you're on the hard luck tack," quoth Ben, "there was the Junior, of New Bedford. I've heard my uncle tell of her. Out a year and two months and put back to port _clean_--and the crew plumb disgusted. Could you blame 'em?"

This conversation went on between our watches while the three sperm whales were being butchered. There was a peculiarity about these cachelots that I failed to mention. We butchered them in a different manner than we did the Greenland, or right, whale. The cachelot has no baleen but it furnishes spermaceti. A large, nearly triangular cavity in the right side of the head, called the "case" (sometimes spermaceti is called "case oil") is lined with a beautiful, silver-like membrane, and covered by a thick layer of muscular fibres. This cavity contains a secretion of an oily fluid which, after the death of the animal, congeals into a granulated yellowish-hued substance. Our whale, the first of the school killed by the second mate's boat--had in its case a tun, or ten barrels, of spermaceti!

While the trying-out operations were under way we lost, of course, that school of sperms; but we drifted some miles into the south, and as soon as Captain Rogers could get canvas on her, we made a splendid run for two days west of south and so caught up either with that same school, or with another herd of cachelots.

I had thus far seen some of the sport, a good deal of the hard work, and some of the uncertainties of the whaleman's life; now I came upon a streak of peril the remembrance of which is not likely to be sponged from my mind as long as I possess any memory at all.

It was at daybreak the lookout hailed the deck with "Ah-h blows! And spouts! All about us, sir!"

It was true. We had run into the midst of the school of whales. Captain Rogers being called by Mr. Robbins, took a look around the sea-line, cast a shrewd look at the heavens, went and squinted at the glass, and then ordered the canvas reefed down and all hands to breakfast. The prospect, of both weather and whales, was for a good kill.

The healthy rivalry between the boats was now manifest. Captain Rogers ordered all six out, leaving but two men aboard the bark. They could just manage to steer her under the riding sail. Our boat was off as soon as any and we pulled steadily for the whale we had chosen as our prize. We had brought in the biggest one before and we hoped to do as well on this occasion.

But we couldn't pick the biggest this time, for as we shot through the rippling waves, aiming for a huge bull that rolled on the surface, up popped a young female, with a calf, right in our course.

"Look out for her!" quoth old Tom Anderly. "She'll be ugly, sir--with that kid beside her. Better think twice of it, Mr. Gibson."

"Think we're going to have the other boats give us the yah-yah because we pass up a fifty-foot she whale, eh?" demanded the young second officer. "Just step forward here, old timer, and see if you can stick your fork into her."

After all, the mate's word was law even to the old boat-steerer. They quickly changed places and Tom took up the iron. The calf was playing on the far side of its mother, and so we could easily come up upon the nigh side without being observed.

In a few moments Tom had her pinned. Then there was the Old Harry to pay and no pitch hot, as the sailors say!

The other two whales I had seen killed merely thought of running away from the thing that had hurt them. But the one we now were fast in had her baby to care for. She set off running, but would not swim faster than the calf could travel. We did not put out the full length of one line.

"Haul in! haul in!" cried Ben Gibson, excitedly. "I'll get a lance in her."

"You be careful, sir," whispered old Tom, from the stern again, to which he had gone after throwing the iron. "There ain't nothing wickeder than a she whale with a sucking calf, when she's roused."

We had drawn in rather close and could see that the calf was falling behind. The mother noticed it as well. She feared the thing that had stung her; but, mother-like, she clung to her little one. She swerved around and the line fell slack.

"Look out, now, sir!" cried Tom Anderly again. "She's mad, and she's scared, and she's looking for us. If she once gits her tail under our bottom its good-bye Jo for all hands--and the water's mighty wet today."

Almost as he ceased speaking the wicked eye of the great creature blinked at the boat, and she came rushing down upon it. Tom threw himself upon the great steering oar, while Ben shouted:

"Pull! Pull, you lubbers! Do you want to be swamped by the critter?"

We bent our backs to the struggle and the whaleboat shot ahead; but the maddened cow-whale came on, as big as a brick warehouse, and bent on running us under!