Part 6

He was not an old turtle. Some of his fellows had lived for several centuries and were old before he was born. But he had grown very large since the day he first saw the sun shining over the reef at Roncador. He was but a tiny little fellow then, and his shell was so soft that he felt the sun burn through it. His leather-like skin on his neck was tender and even his bony beak could hardly cut the soft Gulf weed. His flippers were dark and soft and very unlike the huge scaly paddles he now used to scull himself along. He was quite rapid in his movements then, but life upon the tropical sea had gradually had the effect of making him sluggish and philosophical. The sunshine was all he cared for.

He had no trouble getting enough to eat without fighting for it. It seemed a great waste of energy to be eternally chasing other and weaker creatures, and now he had drifted instinctively back to the habits of his forefathers. He took things very coolly. When a savage shark or albicore made a strike at him he did not retaliate by snapping at them with his huge beak which would now slice out a couple of pounds of wood from a floating log and shear through anything living. He simply hauled in his paddles and stump of a tail to the sheltering safety of his armor and the vigorous fish might chop all day at him for all he cared. Their teeth might scratch his shell a little, but the powerful arch of his back made it impossible to crush him and a few scratches upon his plates would not injure him in any way whatever. His head he might draw in until his ugly beak and steady eyes looked out of a sort of cavern. It was trifling with sudden death to come within the radius of a foot of that nose, and the vigorous fish after tormenting him a few minutes generally gave him a shove and left him in disgust.

After they had gone away he would slowly and lazily shove out his paddles again and proceed to scull himself leisurely on his way, his small, dull mind undisturbed at the affront. Such creatures were a nuisance to him, but they were in existence and it was not for him to worry because they were. He would go along in the sunshine and soft air in his easy way, and when these no longer attracted him he would draw in his head, upset himself, then, thrusting it forward again, go sculling for the cool depths where he would spend many hours among the beautiful marine growths fathoms below the surface upon the coral reef, and where the faint light of the sun filtering down made objects dim and uncertain. All was quiet here, and it was the ideal place for repose.

It had taken many years of wandering to get the loggerhead as far north as the Bahama Bank. He had let himself drift along, and here he was at last in the core of the great Florida Stream, going to the northward at a rate which would have astonished him very much had he known its velocity. It is doubtful even if he had known it that he would have made any effort to either stem it or get clear, for he now had the reposeful habit strong in his nature, and he took things as they came. Nothing had as yet caused him the slightest harm, and there was no reason to get excited at anything. Life was pleasant. Effort was useless.

He would float along upon the bright blue surface of the warm stream and poke his head up into the clear sweet air and sunshine. It was enough. The life of albicore or dolphin was not for him. Theirs was all effort, savage strife, and a sudden death. He might lie and ponder at their lot with his head slightly raised and his paddles at rest, but while he might notice them in their desperate play he had a supreme contempt for them all. He had already lived as long as three generations of them, and they had done nothing save fight and slay.

As he floated away he soon found many of his old acquaintances were disappearing. The savage amber-jack and fat sunfish would pass him now and then, but they were always heading south. Only his companions, the flying fish, seemed to care as little as he for their whereabouts. The flying fish were not afraid of him, and they were his friends. He held them in high disdain for their cowardice, for they were always timorous and ready for flight at the first sign of an approaching fish, and it was more contempt than pity he had for those who were caught. The more fortunate he would watch with languid interest.

The lives of all were so full of strife they were eminently unsuccessful from his point of view, and it was only because the little flyers were so pretty when they whirled upward from the blue water and with whirring wings sailed away, that he liked them better than the rest. They always knew where the best Gulf weed was to be had and never disputed his claim to the largest share of any that he found. It was manifest to him that he was a superior being, quite above the rest of his fellows, and with the instinctive feeling common to all animals, he felt that this superiority was a special gift from the great power which he felt ruled his destiny. His dull brain worked slowly. There was no quickening of his sluggish circulation to brighten his wits.

It was quite a fortnight after leaving the Bahama Bank that he began to notice that the water about him was not quite so blue as before and that there was a chill in it which he did not like. It stirred him to action and he began paddling westward after the setting sun. The next day a low shore appeared on the horizon with a bright sand beach shining like a white band between the dark line of hammock and the sparkling sea. He headed for it, thinking to haul out a little while and sun himself upon the hot beach, for the air was much cooler than what he had been accustomed to and the Gulf weed was scarce.

In spite of his unwieldy size the loggerhead was not slow when he once started to use his great paddles. He kept up a steady stroke with all four, his large front ones sculling him along like two oar-blades, bending at each return, and his smaller hind ones shoving him ahead with quick, jerky strokes. His head was thrust forward, and he went along a few feet below the surface like a great oval shadowy shape.

In a little while he drew near the beach. It was a long sand-spit stretching out to sea, upon which the long roll of the Atlantic swell fell with a deep, sullen roar. Beyond the spit was a quiet lagoon, and there was an opening through the line of breakers.

He paddled slowly in, keeping clear of the surf, poking his head up now and then to get his bearings correctly. Upon the inner end of the bar he saw three strange forms. They were absurd-looking creatures with long legs and bills, their heads having light gray penciled feathers giving them the appearance of being bald, as their wings and breasts were dark. Their large eyes were watching the incoming tide as it swirled through the inlet, and when they saw him they set up a vast noise of protest, scolding loudly and threatening him. He felt instinctively that these birds were timid creatures in spite of their fierce threats, and a sudden movement toward them sent them shrieking away in terror. This amused him, and he went in through the smooth water unmolested.

Inside the lagoon was a long stretch of shoal water. Sculling along close to the bottom so that but a few inches were between him and the hard sand, he went swiftly up the sound. A great sand shark lay in front of him, his long body barely moving, the sunlight playing upon his flanks and his dorsal fin just awash. The loggerhead gave him a brush with his paddle as he went past and the great fish shot ahead a full fathom with the touch. He was not used to being brushed against, and it startled him. Then he turned and chopped at the turtle, but his teeth met the armor of shell and several broke with the impact. The loggerhead went steadily on. The water was now getting warmer again and the sunshine made it very bright, for it was shoal and the white sand reflected the rays from the bottom, hurting his eyes with the glare.

He found a sloping beach and hauled lazily out into the heat of a cloudless day.

The quiet of the lagoon was attractive to the turtle. He spent many days drifting about its shallow depths feeding upon the drift-weed and small shell-fish the tide drove into the inlet. He was well content to lie upon the surface and watch the shear-waters go sailing past, their beaks skimming the smooth sea, the tips sometimes cutting like a knife through the yielding medium, ready to snatch up any unwary mullet or small fry that happened upon the surface in their path. Often a great pelican would come in from the sea and fish for a few hours over the schools of mullet or whiting until with heavy pouch and tired pinions he would withdraw to the sand-spit to gorge himself with the tender morsels.

The loggerhead was amused at the harried schools of fish as they scurried in terror for a shelter. He felt his superiority over all the other denizens of the lagoon, and the poor little creatures hurrying in terror from the destroyers filled him as before with disdain.

One day a fishing schooner hove to off the inlet. Boats were lowered and a long seine placed in them. The net was very strong and its leadline so heavy it took eight men to haul it. They headed slowly in for the inlet and lay off the entrance for some time waiting for the tide to favor an attempt to make the opening through the breakers. They headed the long rollers, rowing easily, and one man stood in the bow of the leading boat watching the shoaling water, ready to warn the helmsman in time to prevent getting ashore.

Soon they saw the way clear ahead and the rowers put some strength into their stroke, sending the small craft rapidly in. They went through the entrance safely, although a breaker rolling close to the outer edge of the sand-spit half filled the leading boat. Then they rested on their oars and began to clear the net.

The loggerhead was far away up the lagoon when the fishermen entered. He saw them as they were stretching the seine across the entrance of the inlet and watched them haul it slowly up the slue, driving all the fish before them. The mullet were jumping in terror and the whiting were hurrying for the shoal water half a mile away. The great sand shark who lay off the entrance saw the closing trap in time to make a lunge past the end of the line, splashing the man in the bow with a vigorous slap of his tail as he swung across and clear. He made a chop at the trailing net, but missed it in his hurry. Then he went sullenly to sea.

The fishermen landed on either side of the narrow lagoon and started to walk the net slowly up, gradually closing the space above into smaller and smaller scope. In half an hour they had gone more than halfway, and the frightened schools of fish began to grow more and more restless as they saw the strangers approaching. Some of them tried the meshes of the seine, but they were too small for any save the tiniest mullet to go through, and they fled back again to the shallow water farther up.

The loggerhead was resting upon the surface watching the men. They had not yet noticed him, but he had gone so long without harm from anyone that he anticipated none. He was satisfied that his superiority to all other creatures put him beyond the pale of becoming a victim to anything.

Suddenly a fisherman noticed him and yelled to his companions across the slue, pointing at the bony beak that showed above the surface. His companions were too far away to hear what he said, but their sharp eyes followed his signals and they soon noticed the turtle.

The net was drawing in closer and closer, the water was getting shoaler, and the men were walking the lines ahead more rapidly. The fish imprisoned beyond its scope now saw their danger plainly and they tore the water into foam in their frantic efforts to escape. The loggerhead saw them and watched them lazily, much amused at their struggles. His contempt for them grew so supreme that when they rushed past him in one of their frantic plunges he snapped viciously at a lagging mullet and very nearly cut him in two. Then he sank slowly down to the sandy bottom below, for the hurrying fish annoyed him.

The net was now nearly up to the end of the slue, and a giant leader of the mullet school made a mighty dash for liberty. He tore down the lagoon and rising with a sudden sweep upward, leaped high in the air and plunged over the line of corks which floated the top of the trap.

He went free. Another, encouraged by his example, made the dash also and went over. The rest, seeing the leaders leap to liberty, made a dash in unison and with a mighty rush plunged at the floating line of buoys. Hundreds went over in spite of the fishermen, who manned their boats and rowed along the net, holding it aloft wherever they saw the crowd coming. Some gave out at the jump and drove against the deadly meshes, and others, finding the crowd too close for them, swerved at the line and flowed past in a solid phalanx of shimmering silver to swim back and make a new trial.

The cries of the men and the rush of the passing schools began to make the loggerhead restless. There was something very extraordinary taking place. He was angry at the miserable fish who were so useless and helpless. His contempt finally became so great that he concluded that he would go down to the other end of the slue where the sand shark usually lay waiting for the little fish to come out in deep water. He started to scull himself forward and had just made headway when he suddenly brought up against the net.

The water was less than ten feet deep where he was, and he followed the obstruction upward to the surface, thinking to find it end before he came into view of the men. But the line of buoys held it well up and his head popped out of the water before he realized that he could not pass. A man in a boat made a vicious lunge at him with a boat-hook, but he got out of the way and followed the net along trying to find a way to get through.

The mullet and whiting were now leaping by scores over the corked line. Their active life had made them fleet and strong. They had fought for existence from the beginning, and the trap about them was but another of the many obstacles they must surmount if they would endure. They were terrified, but they acted quickly and sensibly, their fright not causing them to overlook any possible means of escape. They were getting clear in spite of the shouting men who were now hauling line as fast as they could. Several large skates and a couple of flounders who had lived up the slue were vainly trying to burrow under the heavy leadline that swept the bottom. The loggerhead noticed them as he passed, but they paid no heed to him. A troop of crabs were being hustled along the bottom by the weighted line. They were snapping at everything that came in their reach.

The loggerhead began to get anxious to go away. He made a savage lunge at the meshes closing about him and he drove his head through a great rent he made with his beak. His paddles, or flippers, however, caught in the snare and he struggled wildly and with gigantic power to get through. His tremendous struggles soon drew the corked line below the surface and brought the fishermen hurrying in their boats to find out what caused the trouble. They gazed down into the depths and soon made out the giant shape struggling frantically. Seizing the lines of the seine they quickly hauled the loggerhead to the surface, where one of them grasped his hind paddle and held it long enough to get a bowline around it. Then they rowed to the shore, towing him ignominiously behind the craft, while the few remaining mullet, who were too small and weak to make the leap for liberty, crowded swiftly through the gap and headed for the open sea.

Even the skates now made for the opening in the trap. They rose to the surface with difficulty, but managed to get clear. In less than five minutes every living thing in the shape of a fish had escaped.

The fishermen landed their prize and tried to haul him out of the water. The loggerhead objected to this, and he began to haul them bodily into the sea. The water was riled and he appeared monstrous in the foam. They could not tell what kind of creature he was, but it was for them to get him ashore, and six of them hauled on the line while two, wading in, began to pry at him with oars to turn him upon his back. In a little while they had him rolled over and helpless. Then they came close to examine their victim.

“I’d be willing to lose half a ton of fish fer a fine green turtle,” said the leader of the men. “He’s a corker, an’ that’s a fact.”

“Looks to me like he’s nothin’ but one o’ them loggerheads,” said an old fisherman; “if he is, he’s played it on us fine.”

They looked at the markings on his shell and pulled out his flippers. Then the leader mopped his streaming face with a handkerchief. The old fisherman looked up sheepishly and grinned.

“He aint wuth his weight in mud. Turn him lose an’ let him slide,” he said.

A sailor rapped him over the head and spoke feelingly. Then they cut the line adrift and went to gather in their torn net.

The loggerhead lay upon his back and waited. He was annoyed at the disturbance. It was provoking to be turned over by a lot of fishermen.

The mullet had seen him hauled out by the flipper, and he grew angry at the thought. He tried to twist round and get upon his belly, but could not.

All day he lay in the hot sunshine and snapped viciously at the sand-crabs who came to examine him. Then, as the tide raised and floated him, he managed to get again upon his paddles. He was disgusted. Far away down the lagoon a ripple on the water showed the returning mullet. He gazed at them for a moment, then hauled himself clear of the bottom. His ugly beak was stuck far out, and with steady strokes he pointed it for the open sea. He passed the returning fish, and they wondered at him. Then he went through the opening and disappeared into the great ocean to the eastward.

He was a little more than fourteen feet across the tips of his outspread wings, more than two fathoms, and his white breast, full and rounded, was as broad as that of the man who stood at the wheel and watched him go soaring past. The very tips of his huge wings were black as jet, showing in marked contrast to the unbroken whiteness of the rest of his feathers, and the only other dark spot upon his snowy form was his eye. This was as black and shiny as the lanyards in the rigging. It was large and held a steady gaze, fearless yet curious, so that when the man at the wheel looked up the bird tilted his head to one side to get a better view of him. The giant beak, nearly a foot in length and of heavy bone, had a strangely hooked end, which swelled a little in size from the middle portion. It was a serviceable pair of shears which could cut a five-pound fish in two at a bite. The two webbed feet, as large again as those of a swan, were held close in to the short tail feathers so as not to offer resistance to the air, through which the bird went at the speed of an express train. Silent and otherwise motionless, save for that turn of the head, the great creature swept past. Not a movement of leg or pinion, not a feather disturbed in that headlong rush. With the great wings stretched far out and slightly bowed, he held his way and tore past the fast-running ship as though she were at anchor, instead of plowing through the southern ocean at the rate of ten knots an hour with the wind behind her. Then, as she was left far astern, he tilted himself a little, and off into the curve of a tremendous circle he swerved, swinging with the speed of the wind over the rolling wave-tops until he had covered at least three miles upon the arc and was heading swiftly back again to repeat the maneuver.

All the time that large black and shining pair of eyes watched the surface of the sea. Not a morsel of anything went overboard unobserved. From a distance of a mile or more the huge bird would note the smallest bits of food or grease which the cook would toss over the side when cleaning his coppers for a new mess of salt junk. Sailing over the bits of floating stuff he would hover a moment to see if they were really worth tasting. If so, he would soar in smaller and smaller circles until he would breast a sea. Then, dropping his legs and bracing his feet to retard the slowing flight, he would sink into the water and check himself with both feet and wings until his body finally rested gracefully upon surface. Folding his pinions slowly and a little stiffly, he would propel himself like a huge goose toward the floating prize and make a pass at it with his beak. Salt-pork rind, gristle, anything that had grease or taste to it, was chopped by the bony shears and quickly bolted. It mattered little just what it was as long as it had some grease or taste to it. His appetite was not squeamish.

When nothing remained he would slowly and stiffly again stretch out those wings and face to windward. Then he would propel himself along into the breeze until he rose upon a sea. A quick couple of strokes with the pinions and a sudden push with both feet generally lifted the great body clear of the water before it began to sink down the slope of the succeeding sea. After that it was but a detail to rise higher and higher into the clear air without perceptible motion save of rushing ahead and circling in spiral curves, which no mathematician might describe or define as a means of ascending.

The ship was something over six hundred miles off shore. She was heading for the last corner of the world, Cape Horn, to turn it and then go northward up the South Pacific. She would head up the middle of the great ocean and at times she would not be within a thousand miles of any land whatever.

For more than two weeks the albatross had followed in the wake, his tireless pinions showing no signs of weakening by the continuous flight. Steadily night and day he had followed, and the men aboard had watched him with the awe all deep-water men feel for the giant birds, which seem to be able to soar through space for a lifetime without tiring. Sometimes when he came up astern he slackened his pace by some method and remained for a short moment poised a few fathoms above the man at the wheel. Then his steady look as he slanted his head sideways made the man have a queer feeling, as though he were almost in communication with a stranger from the realms of space. When the captain happened on deck he paid considerable attention to the follower, but he never thought to harm him. The Winchester, which he often used to take snap-shots at blackfish, was always laid aside at his approach.

The great bird noted this. He was not afraid of the rifle, for although he saw the effects of the shot, he knew nothing of its power. The man was a creature of the earth like himself, and he had no reason to suspect him of harmful purposes simply on that account. He was interested in him, and a not unfriendly feeling came within his breast.

In the latitude of the “roaring forties” the weather is uncertain. Sometimes it blows high and sometimes low, which latter means it is dead calm for a spell. Under these conditions a sailing ship naturally comes to a sudden stop, and, with clewed-up courses, rolls and switches away often for days without making more than a degree of southing.

It was during one of these calm spells that the captain began to formulate a plan which would bring him in closer contact with the great bird which still soared and circled about the ship. He rigged a trolling line with a bit of wood for a float near the hook. Then he baited it with a piece of salt beef and tossed it over the side.

The ship was barely moving, but still had headway enough to get away from the bait. When it was fifty fathoms astern the captain held the line and waited.