The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Whaleman's Wife, by Frank Thomas Bullen

A WHALEMAN’S WIFE

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

THE CRUISE OF THE CACHALOT.
THE LOG OF A SEA WAIF.
THE MEN OF THE MERCHANT SERVICE.
IDYLLS OF THE SEA.
WITH CHRIST AT SEA.
A SACK OF SHAKINGS.
DEEP SEA PLUNDERINGS.
THE APOSTLES OF THE SOUTH-EAST.
WITH CHRIST IN SAILORTOWN.
THE PALACE OF POOR JACK.
THE WAY THEY HAVE IN THE NAVY.

SHE STOOD THERE FRAMED IN THE PORTAL LIKE A GRACEFUL PICTURE.

[P. 11.]

A Whaleman’s Wife
By Frank T. Bullen

☙

LONDON: HODDER AND
STOUGHTON 🙡 🙡 27
PATERNOSTER ROW : MCMII

PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

TO
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A SMALL TOKEN OF THE AUTHOR’S ESTEEM
FOR A STRONG CHRISTIAN

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

UNREQUITED LOVE

‘Yew don’ seem ter keer any gret amount fer me, Pris.’

The speaker was a young man of twenty or thereabouts, whose loosely jointed frame showed, even under the shapely rig of homespun, consisting of just a shirt and pants, a promise to the observant eye that he would presently develop into a man of massive mould. He lay upon the stubbly ground, his head resting on one arm, looking wistfully up into the face of a girl about his own age. His clean-shaven face wore that keenness of outline so characteristic of the true Yankee blend in which the broad Saxon or Frisian features seem to have been modified by the sharp facial angles of the indigenous owners of the soil. But in the softness of his grey eyes a close observer would have foreseen a well of trouble springing up for their owner on behalf of others. It was the face of the typical burden-bearer.

In her face, on the other hand, there were evident manifestations of discontent and weariness of restraint. A healthy, pleasant countenance enough, with dark brown eyes and curling hair, well-shaped nose and short upper lip just spotted with freckles. The eyes looked, however, as if they could harden and grow black upon occasion, while the square chin and firm curve of the shut mouth told a plain tale of self-will. There was just a touch of petulance in the quick movement of her head as she replied:

‘You’re so exactin’, Rube. An’ surely you wouldn’t want me to be a hypocrite an’ gush over you when I don’t feel a bit like it. The honest fact is that I like you better than anybody I’ve ever seen, but you know I haven’t seen many people at all; and as for the men folks about here, they’re almost as dull and stupid as the cattle themselves. An’ more than that, Rube, I’m afraid I don’t know what this love is that you seem to be et up with, an’ I’m not going to say I do to please anybody.’

There was silence. Over the wide stretches of newly reaped land not a breath of air was stirring; at evening’s beckoning finger the voices of the day were hushed. It was nearing the gloaming of one of those heavenly days common in Vermont towards the end of harvest, when Nature seems to be contemplating in satisfied peace the result of her summer’s fruitage, and baring her bosom to the mellowing sun for a while, as if to store up warmth against the coming of the fierce blasts of the bitter Northern winter. The smell of the patient earth was sweet, restful in its effect upon the senses, and insensibly moulding impressions upon the mind that would remain through life ineffaceable by any subsequent experiences, and assert themselves in after-years by vivid reproductions of the present scene. Yet the calm beauty of their surroundings had upon each of the two young people an almost entirely opposite effect. He was permeated with a serene sense of satisfaction with life in all its details but one—if only he could be certain that Priscilla loved him! Born and bred upon the typical Green Mountain farm, educated up to the simple standard of the village school, and utterly unacquainted with the seething world beyond his horizon, he was as nearly happy as it is good for man to be in this stage of his existence. His parents, although, like himself, New Englanders born and bred, had somehow escaped from the soul-withering domination of that cruel creed that finds an awful satisfaction in the consignment to eternal fires of all who by one hair’s-breadth should dare to differ from its blindly ignorant conception of theology. Love formed the basis of their faith, and their ideas of an immanent God were mainly derived from the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Under such mild influences it was hardly wonderful that Reuben Eddy had early ‘got religion,’ in the queer phraseology of the States, although in his case, as in that of his parents, there was scarcely any point of resemblance common to the ordinary religious professor. Following none of the orthodox forms of worship, and pretending to no formulated creed, the Eddys lived and moved and had their being in a quiet consciousness of the friendliness of God. They looked as if they would at no time have been surprised, as they certainly would have been unafraid, to see His face with their mortal eyes. They seemed to love God, as birds sing, from an inward impulse that is not a duty but a part of the organism, as natural a necessity as the breath or the heart-beat. Yet, or perhaps because of this, they were intensely human. There was none of that aloofness from the interests of their kind that some excellent people regard as the hall-mark of a Christian. In fact, they were a lovable family whose influence was like that of the spring sun upon all (though they were but few) with whom they came in contact.

Within this last year or two, however, Reuben had felt the deep placid current of his life strangely disturbed. His life-long playmate, Priscilla Fish, whose parents’ farm (three miles away) was the nearest to that of the Eddys, had suddenly assumed a totally different appearance in his eyes. For some time he went about dreamily wondering whatever the change could be that had at once removed her so far above the category of ordinary, everyday people, and at the same time had made him long for her society so ardently that every hour spent away from her seemed to drag, and every thought was shot through and through with side-issues about her. Now between him and his father there had been a life-long intimacy, gently sought and fostered by the elder man as soon as Rube was old enough to know him. Thus they were more than father and son—they were David and Jonathan, with no secrets from one another. So after Reuben had wrestled with this new experience long enough to be able to reduce it to some formulable expression, he took it to his father, as he had done every other difficulty as long as he could remember. The old man listened in sympathetic silence while his son described his symptoms with a gravity that would have been ludicrous but for its earnestness and sincerity. How he felt like a caged bird until he saw Priscilla, yet when she appeared he became hot and cold by turns, and felt so awkward and clumsy that he wanted to hide himself in the earth, and so on, in the same old way that was all so new and disconcerting to him.

Very gently the old man explained matters to him, winding up with a merry twinkle in his eyes, as he said:

‘Haow en the name er pashense yeu’ve shun clar ov this complaint all these years ez er merricle. Ef I know ye—en I ain’t so dead certain of that as I wuz—yew’re just the kinder lad to fall in love fust go. Anyhow, I’m goin’ ter chip in ’n ’elp ye if it kin be did et all.’

With all his fatherly instincts aroused, the fine old fellow trudged over to his neighbour’s farm that same evening, and sought out old man Fish. In quaint fashion, and blaming himself whimsically for his lack of observation in not seeing how things were going before, he explained the situation, finding, much to his gratification, that Priscilla’s father was entirely agreeable to the match. Solemnly the two patriarchs discussed ways and means, planning all manner of pleasant things for the future of their children as far as their sober wishes would allow them. That Reuben and Priscilla should marry, inherit the Eddy homestead, and glide placidly along through life as their parents had done, seemed to these two fond old hearts as roseate a prospect as could be desired. So they sat on, exchanging their slow-moving thoughts, until long past their usual early hour for bed. After a long pause, Farmer Eddy stretched himself with a yawn and said:

‘Wall, Zeke, I reckon I’ll be gittin’ to’rds hum. Seems ter me we ben havin’ er mighty long yarn to-night, ’relse I’m most amazin’ sleepy. Good-night t’ye.’

There was no reply. It was perfectly dark, for they had been sitting in the barn, and when the night closed softly down they had not thought to get a lamp, in their earnestness of conversation. Slightly raising his voice, Farmer Eddy repeated his salutation, but it fell upon the unresponsive darkness around like a pebble dropped into a deep well. With a chill creeping over his scalp the old man reached forward to where his friend was sitting and groped for his hand. It was some seconds before he could find what he sought, and when he did, the truth sank into his marrow instantly: Ezekiel Fish was dead.

Trembling in every fibre, Eddy hastily made for the house, coming into the well-lighted living-room with his message in his face. The family, consisting of Mrs. Fish, her two grown-up sons, and Priscilla, were all seated there, eagerly discussing a knotty point in some book Priscilla had been reading aloud, but the entry of the old man and their first glance at his face froze them into silence. Going straight up to the mother, Eddy laid his trembling hand upon her shoulder, and said, ‘Hepziber, the Lord be good t’ye. He’s taken away yew’re husband.’

There was no outcry. Priscilla came swiftly to her mother’s side and tried to soothe the heavily stricken woman, whose silent suffering was pitiful to see; while the two sons and the old man, bearing lights, returned to the barn and reverently carried in the body. The usual sad offices were soon rendered to the remains, and with slow, uncertain steps Eddy returned home to tell his sorrowful story and warn Reuben that, for the present at any rate, a prior claim to attention had been made upon their neighbour’s family.

Some months, therefore, elapsed before anything of the matter that lay so close to his heart passed Reuben’s lips. But he was by no means impetuous, and besides, he had always been trained to subordinate his wishes to those of others, so that while his love was undoubtedly rooting and grounding itself more firmly every day, he was able to abstain from all mention of it to its object. Summer came, and with it an opportunity during a long Sunday afternoon’s ramble with Priscilla to broach the important matter to her. She listened—somewhat listlessly, it is true, but still she listened; while Rube, growing bolder as he went on, and marvelling at his own powers of speech, poured out to her his hopes and plans. But no enthusiasm could hold out long under the unconcealed air of indifference with which his fervent speech was received, and he soon sobered down to wonder quietly how it was she took his vehemence so coolly. Being ready, however, to supply all deficiencies from his own abundant stock, he was not unduly depressed. And as the days went by his sweet sunny temperament asserted itself, and hope, almost amounting to certainty, arose within him that she would presently, as he had done, find all things changed under the new light of love. Yet in spite of his hopefulness, a weary sense of the hilly road he was travelling would occasionally give him serious pause, and he grew hungry for some return, however slight, of his lavish affection. And it was with one of these moods that this chapter and the story open.

CHAPTER II

‘VENI, VIDI, VICI’

After the death of Ezekiel Fish the care of the farm devolved upon the two brothers, both of them typical Yankee farmers, but without a trace of the kindliness so characteristic of the Eddys. Rube had never been a favourite with them. They dared not despise him openly—he was too big and strong for that; but they spoke of him behind his back in terms of disparagement, and did all in their power to discourage the slightest feeling of affection for him that they imagined their sister to have. Jake, the elder brother, a man some three years older than Rube, had by virtue of his seniority assumed full charge of affairs, and already had begun to launch out in various speculative ways that troubled the old lady sorely. His visits to Boston ‘on business’ were frequent and prolonged, and already he was becoming known to a few of his less reputable associates as a ’feller thet wuz makin’ things hum a bit.’

In these altered circumstances it was no wonder that Rube pressed his suit more earnestly than ever. His unselfish nature was fully alarmed for Priscilla’s immediate future, and his anxiety on her behalf gave his love an added lustre which it had lacked before. But to his distress and chagrin, the steady growth of his affection did not awaken in her the slightest responsiveness. To a stranger it would have been at once manifest that she merely tolerated the young man; even to his love-blinded perceptions the fact stubbornly persisted in revealing itself. Rube endured this coldness patiently for months, until on the evening of the commencement of our story he had drifted almost unconsciously into a protest against this treatment of himself by Priscilla who, if she had never given him any encouragement worth speaking of, had at least tacitly accepted him as a lover. She had received his complaint in the manner already specified, speaking the exact truth about the state of her feelings towards him as far as she knew them. The trouble was that she had not quite realised the strength of a feeling of unrest and discontent with her surroundings which had been steadily eating into her mind for months past. It was largely due to her brother Jake, who, in the elated condition generally noticeable on his return from Boston, was wont to launch into extravagant praise of city life with its light and bustle and abundant enjoyments. Naturally he was correspondingly contemptuous of the well-ordered procession of days characteristic of the country. The majestic harmonies and sweet confidences of Nature, the changeful orchestra of each day, and the placid stillness of the nights, had become to his disorganised ideas like the stagnation of death. His was that subtle malaise that stealthily undermines the natural order of things, and, leaving the countryside to go out of cultivation, herds men and women together in vast feverish crowds to stew and fret and die, but never to return to the quiet of the country again.

This miserable change had, without her knowledge, infected Priscilla also in such a manner that now every task was irksome, the stillness of the evenings almost unbearable. Irritability, which had never before disfigured her character, became increasingly noticeable. Even Rube saw the change, but could not dream of its cause, and innocently added to it by his dog-like untiring affection. Matters were in this unsatisfactory state when one evening the sound of wheels through the crisp air warned the inmates of the Fish place that Jake was returning from one of his Boston jaunts. Priscilla dropped her knitting and went to the door which looked across the wide paddock down the road. To her surprise she saw in the fast approaching buggy two forms. Jake was bringing a visitor! The prospect of any break in what had now become almost an intolerable monotony so affected her that she felt nearly intoxicated, her face flushed rosily, and a tingling thrill that was almost pain rushed all over her. Yet she could not move, but stood there framed in the portal like a graceful [picture], while the buggy drew up at the roadside and the men alighted. As they came across the paddock towards her she saw that the stranger was tall and stalwart, walking with the easy loose-jointed swing of the smart sailor. He was dressed in the garb of an ordinary well-clothed townsman, but a wide sombrero, of brown velvet apparently, shaded his face. Whether by accident or design on his part, this hat completed his resemblance to one of the old conquistadores or grandees of Spain painted by Velasquez. For his visage was swarthy and oval, his eyes large, black, and brilliant, and the lower half of his face was covered by a pointed beard and immense moustache so black and thick and silky that it hardly seemed of natural growth. To Priscilla’s eyes he looked as if he had just stepped across the years out of Prescott’s living page, and, like so many others of her sex, in that moment she gave him her whole heart, offered herself up to the husk of a man, unknowing and uncaring what it contained.

Her mind in a confused whirl of thought, she stood as if petrified until the travellers reached her, and made no sign, even when Jake said, ‘Thishyer’s my sister Priscilla, Cap’n. Pris, Cap’n Da Silva.’ The Captain bowed, gracefully enough because naturally, but with evident signs that the movement was unusual, and held out his small and well-shaped brown hand to meet Priscilla’s white and plump one. The contact of their hands acted upon her like a vigorous restorative, and the blood fled back again from her face and neck, leaving them for the moment unnaturally pale as she found her voice and bade the stranger welcome. Even Jake’s dull eyes could not fail to see how powerfully his sister was impressed by the Captain, and it pleased him well. Selfish and grasping, he was by no means sorry to get rid of his sister, nor did the thought of his mother’s loneliness affect him in the slightest degree. So that it was with a chuckle of satisfaction he turned away to put up his horse and buggy, saying carelessly as he did so, ‘’Scuse me, Cap. My sister’ll look after you in shape, won’t ye, Pris?’

Thenceforward Priscilla and the Captain were constant companions, their intimacy tacitly encouraged by Jake, who was in a high state of satisfaction at the prospect of getting rid of his sister finally. The mother made many attempts to gain her daughter’s confidence, for she felt an innate distrust of the handsome stranger. But Priscilla, forgetting all her mother’s claims, avoided with intuitive diplomacy any approach to the subject on her part, showing at times an irritability of manner that sorely troubled the old lady, who, having no one to turn to in her distress of mind, was lonely indeed. At last, one day when Pris, the Captain, and Jake had driven off upon some excursion of pleasure, she felt that she could bear the trouble alone no longer, and taking advantage of her younger son’s absence at a neighbouring farm, she made a pilgrimage over to the Eddy farmhouse, intent upon pouring out her heart to Mrs. Eddy. The meeting between the two old dames was full of pathetic interest, for Mrs. Eddy loved her boy so fondly that, although she had never felt drawn to Priscilla, it was enough for her that Rube loved the girl. His happiness was the consideration that overtopped all others in her heart. So that when Mrs. Fish unburdened herself, her hearer was torn by maternal solicitude for her boy, and for the time her anxiety as to the effect this news would have upon him was too great to allow her to reply. And when she did speak, her words sounded hollow and unmeaning—so much so that her visitor stared at her wonderingly. For Mrs. Eddy’s powers of consolation and wisdom of counsel were matters of common knowledge over a wide extent of country—she was looked up to as infallible. The look in her visitor’s eyes recalled her to herself somewhat, and choking down her feelings by a great effort, she said:

‘Wall, Hepziber, yewrs ’s surely a hard case, ’n’ I kain’t fur th’ life of me see wut yew’re to do. Ef Pris is ’tarmined tu go her own way ’n’ wun’t listen to yew on the matter ’t all, ’n’ ef, ’s yew say, Jake’s doin’ his best t’ encourage her, yew’re jest brought face to face with th’ wall, ’s yew may say. My Rube w’d hev made her a good husband, an’ one ’bout whose record there couldn’t be any doubt; but I’ve seen fur a long time that she wuz jest puttin’ up with him like—she didn’t love him more ’n she did me, ’n’ you know she never took ter me, ner dad eyther. Go home ’n’ pray about it, Hepziber; it’s all we kin do. As fur myself, I’ve got ter wrassle with th’ Lord for my boy, fur how he’ll b’ar this I kain’t begin ter think.’

And with this cold comfort (to her), Widow Fish had to depart for the home she was beginning to feel a stranger in, after all these years, leaving Mrs. Eddy with a heart overflowing with sorrowful love for her only son. With a natural dread of the effect the news would have upon him, she put in practice all the simple arts she knew to keep him in ignorance of what was brewing, and finally succeeded, by the aid of her husband, in despatching him to Boston on business without his calling at the Fish place first. He was absent from home for a fortnight, and when he returned, after an hour or two spent with his father and mother, he rose and said, with a transparent attempt to conceal his eagerness:

‘I guess I’ll jest stroll over an’ see Pris. I’d like to tell her ’bout some o’ the Boston sights. ’N’ I’ve brought her a cunning little watch for a birthday present.’

The mother looked appealingly at her husband, who, answering her gaze with eyes full of fondness, rose, and laying his hand upon Rube’s shoulder, said:

‘My son, yew’re a man in years an’ strength, ’n’ I’ve brung ye up to be the good man I b’lieve y’ are. Y’ haven’t hed enny big trouble yet, but y’ know ther’ ain’t nothin’ in th’ world yew kin ’pend on till it’s tested. Yew’re goin’ ter be tested now. Priscilla’s married.’

The watch dropped from the young man’s fingers on to the stone floor and was broken. Except for that sound there was absolute silence: none of the three seemed to breathe. Presently Rube spoke:

‘Thank ye, father, fur tellin’ me plain ’n’ prompt. Now I think I’ll go upstairs ’n’ rest.’

And with heavy uncertain steps Rube left the kitchen, mounted to the little room he had occupied since he was a child, and shut himself in.

It was true. With a haste that was explained by the Captain as absolutely necessary on account of his ship being ordered to sea at a very short notice, he had pressed his suit when once he found how willing Priscilla was to take him at his own valuation. Mrs. Fish, thoroughly bewildered by the whole hasty proceeding, wandered about the house like an unquiet ghost, doing nothing either to help or hinder the preparations. Jake was unwontedly lavish with the funds necessary, and indefatigable in giving assistance, so that two days before Rube returned from Boston the newly married pair had departed for New Bedford with the intention of spending their honeymoon on board Captain Da Silva’s ship as she journeyed southward on the commencement of her long voyage. She was called the Grampus, and was one of the fine fleet of South Sea whaleships then sailing from New Bedford, although so ignorant were the farm-folk of Vermont of maritime matters that even Jake, smart as he fancied himself, had but the dimmest, vaguest idea of what the life was that his sister was going to be shut up to for the next three or four years. Still less did he care. As for Priscilla, she would have accepted unquestioningly any situation into which she might be brought so long as she was by the side of the man she worshipped with a fierce unreasoning intensity. Of Rube she never thought for more than a minute at a time, and then it was only with a sense of relief at the knowledge that he would trouble her no more. From her mother she parted without regret: there seemed to be no room in her mind for anything else but intense satisfaction in the prize she believed herself to have won. Even the prospect of seeing the great world which had once claimed all her desires was but a feeble unit now in the vast sum of her delight in the possession of Ramon Da Silva. Nor was her joy in the least damped by the masterful way in which he accepted all the affection she lavished upon him. To do him justice, he was hardly to blame for this. His career, from the time he had enlisted as a green hand on board of an American whaler at Fayal, in his sixteenth year, had been one long series of successes, due to the great force of his character, his utter unscrupulousness, and entire absence of fear. Step by step he had risen in his dangerous profession until he had become master of a whaleship, while his name was a household word among the fleet for smartness, courage, and—brutality.

CHAPTER III

A SUDDEN RESOLVE

When Rube came down the next morning and composedly met his father’s and mother’s anxious looks, he had the listless air of a man whose spirit had been broken. There was a droop in his shoulders, a dulness in his eyes that contrasted painfully with the bright alertness of his glance and carriage of the day before. But he said nothing of his blow, and his parents wisely forbore to say anything either, trusting that his young and healthy body would come to the assistance of his mind, and that the wound would soon skin over. Unfortunately for their hopes, his love had been the pivot of his life. While a good farmer, a good son, and a good business man, he had no hobbies, he read little, and, being much alone, he had allowed his passion for Priscilla to become so interwoven with his every thought and action that the knowledge of her loss had been like a rending of soul from body. So he went about his duties like a somnambulist, seeking no comfort, making no confidences, and apparently as insensible to externals as a hypnotised man would be.

In this dull round of daily tasks several weeks passed away, until it happened that he found himself at the village grocery on some trivial errand. There was the usual knot of loungers ready to talk, and absurdly grateful for the coming of any stranger with something fresh to say. As he passed through them with a brief nod of recognition to one and another, and entered the store, he saw standing erect in their midst a tall wiry-looking man, whose face was unfamiliar to him. Pausing for an instant, with the first symptom of interest he had manifested for many days, he heard the stranger say:

‘Yas, ’n’ if enny ov yew fellers hed th’ grit ov a chipmunk, yew wouldn’t take twicet t’ think over yer anser. Wut man’d go on grindin’ mud all his life in a dead-’n’-alive God-fergotten corner like this when he’s got ’n opportoonity of seein’ the world—all th’ world, mind ye, east, west, north, and south—an’ makin’ a small forchin ’s well? I dunno wuts come over the yewth ov Amurica to-day. Sims t’ me they’ve lost their old vim ’n’ push altogether. Well, s’ long, boys; if I kain’t persuade ye I kain’t, ’n’ there’s an eend on ’t, ’n’ I mus’ be gittin’ ’long. But ef enny ov ye wants time t’ make up yer minds, I sh’l be back this way ag’in ter-morrer ev’nin’, ’n’ that’ll be the las’ chance you’ll git, enny ov ye.’

Although he had not heard any of the stranger’s preliminary discourse, and shrank from making inquiries, Rube’s interest was aroused to the highest pitch. He returned to his home with the few words he had heard seething and bubbling in his mind. For he felt that at last here was a way of escape from the almost insupportable deadness of his life. He could not realise that ‘the mind is its own place,’ and so, like a caged animal, seeing a door of hope open to him, he felt an unconquerable longing to flee. He said not a word throughout the evening meal, but that was so much his habit now that it passed unnoticed. Mechanically he bowed his head at ‘worship,’ but his father’s reading of a chapter from the Bible might have been in the original Hebrew for all he understood of it. After gaining the solitude of his room, he sat on the bed, his head on his hands, trying hard to reduce the whirlpool of his thoughts to some definite shape until far into the night, but in vain. Only one idea seemed to stand out sharply and distinctly against the misty tumult: he must go. At last, wearied with mental conflict, he fell backward, dressed as he was, and went to sleep.

He rose unrefreshed, with a racking headache for the first time in his life, and went about his usual round of duties automatically. But his face bore such evident traces of his last night’s conflict that they could not escape his mother’s keen eye. She anxiously inquired after his health, but was met with the careless reply that he was ‘all right.’ She knew better, of course, but it had never been her way to force confidence, and so she manifested no more curiosity. She only looked wistfully at her boy when unobserved by him, and hovered about him as if more than ordinarily solicitous for his comfort. All day long he moved and looked like a man in a dream, every thought, every feeling merged in one idea—escape. Strange, that it never occurred to him how impossible it is for a man to flee from himself.

Without waiting for supper, and as if dreading to be questioned, no sooner was the day’s work done than he strode off to the village grocery, assuming, as he approached it, a most elaborate air of unconcern, and lounging into the midst of the little knot of listless men hanging about the door as if nothing mattered—an attitude common to all of them. He had not long to wait. In about ten minutes after his arrival a brisk footfall was heard, and turning the corner sharply the lean, keen-looking stranger of the previous evening strode into the midst of the group.

‘Evenin’, boys,’ he jerked out, diving into the pockets of his pants at the same time and producing a formidable plug of hard tobacco and a knife. Having provided himself with a fresh cud and passed on the materials to his next neighbour, he proceeded:

‘Wall, boys, hev ye made up yer minds yet? This, as the paestor sez, is the last time ov askin’. Ye’ve got ter speak up now, ’relse stay right whar y’ are f’rever ’n’ ever. ’N’ that, I sh’d say, ’d be ’nough t’ decide fr’anny young man. Veg’tables don’ count anyhaow.’

This short harangue ended, he looked slily at his hearers to see whether he had made any impression upon them, but with the exception of a vacant half laugh or two, accompanied by an uneasy shuffle on the part of the utterers thereof, they might as well all have been deaf for any notice they took of him. But suddenly, to his astonishment (although he was careful not to show it), Rube, who was a stranger to him, stepped forward and said:

‘Wall, stranger, I guess I’ll hitch hosses with ye. When d’ ye start, an’ what’s th’ ’rangements?’

‘Right, my boy, I’m real proud of ye. I’m startin’ this evenin’ as ever is; ’n’ as t’ ’rangements, ye’ve only got ter sign thishyer paper agreein’ t’ join any ship I s’lect f’r ye, ’n’ take a little keepsake from me in the shape of two-an’-a-haef dollars. Then ye’ll pack up yer traps, ’n’ I’ll see ye booked through to Noo Bedford. Yew’ll start first thing in the mornin’.’

Hardly looking at the form of agreement, Rube signed, the stranger being provided with pen and ink, and dropping the money loosely into his pocket, he strode off homewards, leaving the loungers all agape at the idea of Rube Eddy, who was well known to be one of the steadiest and most comfortably established young men in the county, going off at a minute’s notice to foreign lands. Long and earnest was the discussion that followed, all sorts of possible and impossible reasons for the step Rube had taken being brought forward. The stranger lolled at his ease, listening in the hope that Rube’s example might prove contagious, but, to his disappointment, it seemed to have quite a contrary effect. The talkers were like men who had just witnessed one of their number take a plunge into the fathomless abyss, from the brink of which they all drew back with horror. This state of mind soon became evident to the stranger, who, jerking himself to his feet, shook himself, stretched, yawned, and finally said:

‘Wall, boys, kain’t linger with ye always. I’m beginnin’ t’ feel like Rip Van Winkle meself in thishyer slumbersom place. I reckon I shall hev to hurry back to civilisation agen before I go to sleep too. How on airth yew fellers keep ’wake long ’nough t’ eat ’n drink I d’no.’

With this parting shot he turned on his heel and disappeared into the gathering darkness, and they saw him no more.

Meanwhile Rube, his mind a blank, reached home and, hastily ascending to his room, busied himself gathering together his clothing. Good serviceable homespun, most of it, such as would be fit for any work, however rough, that might fall to his lot. Having made it into a compact bundle, with a celerity that raised a dim wonder even in himself, he drew himself up, as if bracing all his fortitude to meet father and mother. Memories of the quiet, pleasant years began to crowd in upon him, but with a gesture as if to crush them back, he deliberately walked down the narrow stairway, whose every step seemed to utter a reproachful creak. Entering the kitchen, he crossed over to the fireside, where his parents sat facing each other and calmly talking over some trivial happening of the day. Standing before them, he waited a moment, while they both looked up at him, and in that one swift glance his mother knew that a crisis had arrived. In a husky voice, that sounded as if it belonged to someone else, he said:

‘Mother, Dad, I’m goin’ away termorrer mornin’. Fergive me fer leavin’ ye like this, but I jest had ter go. I’m no good here any more. I’m goin’ t’ sea, ’n’ when I come back mebbe I’ll be a stronger man. Naow I’m a wuthless, dreamy shote, ’n’ I feel ’s if thishyer quiet easy life ’d certainly drive me mad befo’ very long.’

‘Must you go to-morrow, my son?’ murmured his mother hopelessly, for she knew the breed, knew that once set upon a thing the Eddys were immovable, and yet she felt obliged to make an effort.

‘Yes, mother. ’Greement’s signed, th’ airnest money’s in my pocket, an’ my duds are all packed. I’m goin’, sure.’

‘Rube,’ said his father, ‘we’ve been mighty cluss friends all our lives, an’ we ain’t goin’ ter fall eout naouw, I’m dead shore o’ that. But ye mout ha’ told me wut ye wuz meditatin’. ’T wan’t far t’ me, boy, naow wuz it?’

For all answer Rube reached for his father’s hand and held it tight, while the working of his face showed how hard the simple words had hit him.

The father broke the silence again by saying, ‘Let us pray.’ With a sudden return to his childhood Rube knelt at his mother’s knee, while the old man, as had been his nightly wont ever since he first brought home his young bride, but with an added solemnity born of the shadow of his first bereavement, spoke to his Friend:

‘Father, eour hearts air troubled. Yew’ve brung us along a pleasant road right inter the green valley of comfortable old age. We’ve hed a happy time together, ’n’ this our son hez alwus ben a delight to us. We looked that he sh’d still be so, that he sh’d close eour eyes when we laid us down at last t’ sleep. P’raps we hev been selfish, ’n’ need a lesson to teach us wut it means to spare an only son. He’s goin’ away from us f’r a long time—where, he doesn’t know himself; but however fur he goes, don’t let him get away from you. We don’t ask you t’ spare him t’ us ef it’s necessary we sh’d never see him alive any more; but ef it might be, Father, you know how ’tis yourself, ’n’ therefore you know what it’ll mean t’ us t’ have him back again. Make him through all he’ll have t’ bear such a man as yew’d love to have him, ’n supply his place at home, if it ken be supplied, by a truer sense of yew’re presence with us. Bless my son, O Father, and bless us, f’r yewr Son’s sake. Amen.’

Little more was said, although they sat hand in hand far into the night. Rube wanted nothing that his father could give him, having sufficient money for all his prospective needs; but he accepted his mother’s Bible gratefully, feeling that it would be a palpable link with her. At last they went to bed, where Rube, not from callousness, but from sheer overstrain of mind, slept soundly. His mother lay all through the hours silently praying, while the unhindered tears trickled slowly and continuously down. And his father watched with her.

CHAPTER IV

DEPARTURE

Morning broke over the Eddy homestead grey and cheerless, a fitting reflection of the frame of mind holding sway over its inmates. Rube came down with his grip-sack in his hand, his best clothes donned, and an air of stern resolve on his strong features. He found his father and mother awaiting him in the humble room where he had met them ever since his mind first awakened to the knowledge of worldly matters. For a few moments after the ‘good mornings’ were said, no word further passed the lips of the three. Suddenly the mother spoke, saying:

‘Rube, my son, you never told us whar’ you were goin’.’

To some of us perhaps it may seem strange that neither father nor mother had asked this question before, but the fact is that in their secluded lives the mere idea of one of them leaving home for so long was sufficiently terrible, without any definition of the precise locality to which the wanderer might be directing his steps being thought of. But the mother’s heart was already in prospect reaching out after the absent one, and therefore it was but fitting and natural that she should be the first to desire to know whither he was going. Rube flushed a deep red as the necessary vagueness of his reply dawned upon him, but he said:

‘I’m goin’ ter sea, mother; thet’s all I know at present. When I git t’ Noo Bedford an’ find out whar’ I kin git letters or write frum, be sure I’ll let you know to onct. I’m drefful sorry I kain’t tell you anythin’ more ’n thet.’

The morning meal, ample and palatable as it always is on these Eastern farms, was spread, and the three took their places at the board; but although they made a brave show of eating, the food would not be got rid of, and suddenly Rube arose, as if the sight of his father’s worn face and his mother’s eyes, bleared with weeping through the long night, was too much for him, saying as he did so:

‘Wall, it’s time I wuz off. Good-bye, mother; good-bye, father. I know yewr prayers’ll hover roun’ me wharever I go; and ez soon ez I hev worn out this drefful restless feelin’ I’ll come back and settle down, please God, never to go away any more.’

A silent kiss from the mother, a grave handshake from the father, and Rube turned his back upon home. Nor did he once look behind him as he strode down the road towards where, in the little village, a conveyance was waiting to take him to the station, whence he might reach New Bedford by railroad. He did not look back because he feared to see his mother’s face. Not that his resolve to go would have been thereby weakened, but that he could not help feeling guilty in that he was weakly fleeing from what he could not help knowing was his duty—weakly giving way to what he could not help knowing was after all, cowardice. But who shall dare to judge the action of his fellow-men under abnormal conditions? ‘Put yourself in his place’ is a good motto, but how very rarely is it possible for us to act it out! Therefore, although many of us may very well feel inclined to judge Rube harshly for thus deserting father and mother and a life of usefulness, and becoming a wanderer on the face of the deep simply because the woman of his choice could not be his, let us not forget that ever since the world began, and men and women have been able to recount their experiences, strange things have been recorded as done by disappointed lovers against their better judgment.

Rube’s mind as the train sped him onwards towards the beautiful New England town whence he was to start upon his long sea journeyings was almost a blank. Never given much to a habit of introspection, he was by reason of the shock that he had recently received less able now to devote himself to concentrated thought than ever; and so, had he been asked what he was thinking about during that long railway journey, he would have replied, no doubt with perfect frankness, ‘Hardly anything.’ I think this experience is not uncommon, even among men and women given to meditation, when suddenly they have received a mental blow. Be that as it may—and I will own that it is a debatable point—when Rube arrived at New Bedford he had just the air of stolid bewilderment that is generally noticeable upon the faces of country-bred people first coming in contact with the strangeness of life in a seaport town. And truly one might have sailed the wide world round and not have found a more wonderful seaport than New Bedford was in those days. Men of almost every nation under heaven, clad in outlandish garments, jostled each other along the strongly smelling wharves and picturesque streets bordering the bay. New Bedford was then in the height of her prosperity as metropolis of the whaling world. Over six hundred fine ships came and went on their adventurous sea-questings, bringing with them from the uttermost ends of the earth queer-looking denizens of those far-off lands. Kanakas from the multitudinous Isles of the Pacific, Aborigines from Central America, Aleuts from Alaska, Japanese from Nippon, Chinese, Malays, Papuans, and Dyaks from the East Indian Archipelago, Lascars from Hindustan, Arabs from the Persian Gulf, and last, but by far the most numerous of all these wanderers, Portuguese of every hue, from deepest black to creamy white, from the Fortunate Isles. The diversity of peoples was not more wonderful than the quaintness of their costumes, which were, indeed, a chance medley of all the national dresses of the world. Yet in every case a keen observer, and one acquainted with the subject, might have recognised evidences of an attempt on the part of the wearer to give to his nondescript raiment some national peculiarity. Not only were the people a wonderful sight, but another sense—that of smell—was overpoweringly arrested on the crowded wharves, where scores of weatherbeaten ships discharged their greasy spoils, the odour from which permeated the entire atmosphere, seizing upon a stranger with almost intoxicating effect. Then the sounds!—the loud cries of the labourers as they toiled to discharge the cargoes from the ships, the wonderful medley of languages spoken by the strange seafarers slouching along the shore, and, pervading all, the hollow murmur of the sea as it rolled in on the beaches of the beautiful bay under the stress of a strong landward gale.

Amidst these novel sights, sounds, and smells, Rube made his way like a man in a dream towards the place whither he had been directed, not without considerable difficulty, as three out of every four persons of whom he inquired his direction did not understand a word that he said. This, to a man who had never before met with anybody not speaking his own tongue, was really bewildering, and it was not therefore to be wondered at that by the time Rube had found the building he sought, his mental processes, never too acute, were reduced almost to numbness. Inquiring timidly at the door of the building to which he had been directed as the place where he should find Mr. Sawtell, he was answered nonchalantly by an elderly man, whose grey beard was plentifully streaked with tobacco juice, that if he went right in and took the first door on the left he’d find what he sought. Rube meekly obeyed, and entered a large, high-ceilinged room, scantily furnished, with several desks enclosed by a low fence and some benches. Two men sat at the desks looking as unlike the embodiment of our modern ideas of clerks as could well be imagined, for both of them had soft wideawake hats perched on the backs of their heads, both were smoking enormous cigars, and both bore in their countenances the expression of temporarily out-of-work pirates more than that of peaceful quill-drivers. As Rube approached the nearest desk he was somewhat amazed to see the clerk with his chair tilted back and his feet apparently resting upon the papers before him. He gazed at the strongly-marked lineaments of the official, and that worthy returned his look with interest, presently removing the cigar from his mouth and saying: ‘Wal, young feller; an’ wut kin I hev the pleasure?’ Rube stammered out, rather incoherently: ‘Mr. Sawtell engaged me th’ other day to come down here to jine a ship to go to sea.’ ‘Oh!’ said the clerk, ‘Sawtell engaged yer, did he? And wut mought be the name of the ship?’ ‘I don’ know,’ replied Reuben, who was fast recovering his equanimity; ’he jest told me to come right here.’ ‘That’s all right, sonny,’ said the clerk. ‘Sit down thar an’ wait fer him; he’ll be roun’ bimeby.’

Reuben sat down as directed, and for nearly two hours had the interest of seeing individuals, something like himself, enter, ask almost the same question, and receive almost the same reply, until the room was fairly full. Then, when Reuben began to think that the whole affair must be a mistake, Sawtell entered. With him there came a man looking more like an Eastern patriarch than a seafarer—a tall, loose-jointed, hook-nosed, grey-bearded man, clad in homespun, a long coat reaching nearly to his feet, and a soft steeple-crowned felt hat upon his head. But quaint as his figure might be, there was no mistaking the keen, eagle-like glance of his eyes as he swept them round on the silent men meekly awaiting the arbiter of their fate. And it was he, the Patriarch, who spoke first. ‘Is this the crowd you’ve gut fur me, Sawtell?’ ‘Yes, Cap’n Hampden, an’ ez likely a lookin’ lot ’s ever I see.’ ‘H’m, mebbe so, but jest naow I guess there’s a consid’ble quantity of plough soil hangin’ to ’em. But they do seem likely enough, as yer say. However, I gut no time to spare. We’re bound out first tide to-morrer, an’ if these gentlemen air quite disengaged’ (waving his hand towards the clerks) ‘we’ll purceed to business to once.’ Then, raising his voice, he addressed the waiting candidates comprehensively, saying: ‘Wal, young men, so ye feel inclined to try yewr fortunes upon the ragin’ deep, do ye?’ Muttered responses went up, of which no man might gather the import, save that they were in the affirmative. ‘Right an’ good,’ said the Patriarch; ‘step up here, and hear this gentleman’ (with a sarcastic inflection upon the last word) ‘read eout t’ ye the conditions of sarvice.’

With an unexpected alacrity one of the clerks sprang to his feet, and, from a somewhat grimy document, read in a high sing-song tone of voice an agreement whereby the said crew covenanted to proceed in the good ship Xiphias to any port or ports of the navigable ocean in pursuit of whales, seals, and any other denizens of the deep capable of being made profitable to crew and owners; voyage not to exceed four years. It must be confessed that, slurred over as the last two words were (unintentionally, no doubt), several of the candidates suddenly showed a wistfulness of countenance, as if they had a prospective idea of what those four years might mean, but no word was spoken by any of them. Then, one by one, they stepped up to the desk and signed their names, first being told that they would be entitled to receive a good and sufficient quantity of cooked provisions, and the 250th lay, in return for their unquestioning obedience at all times to all orders that Captain Hampden and his officers might issue to them. And this important preliminary finished, they were all sternly ordered, as being men now under command, to be down at the ship by six o’clock in the morning at latest.

So the newly engaged crew filed out of the office and stood in a little group on the sidewalk hesitatingly. A few words passed—invitations to drink for the most part—and one or two spoke to Rube; but he answered them unthinkingly, feeling, indeed, the need for being alone. It was all so new and strange to the country-bred man, and he felt that conversation with anybody would be insupportable. So, with muttered excuses, he left the company, and went for a stroll along the wharves, taking in all the wonders of this strange place with wide-open eyes, but most of his other senses nearly out of action. At last, utterly weary, he turned into a respectable-looking eatinghouse by the waterside, and called for some food, inquiring of the young woman who brought it whether he might take up his lodging there for the night. She answered ‘Yes’ with a surprised air, and, apparently unable to overcome her curiosity, put several questions to him, as to whence he came and whither he was going, all of which he answered evasively, conveying the idea that what he wanted was to be left alone in peace with his own thoughts. Quite unaccustomed to such rudeness on the part of her customers, the young woman tossed her head and departed, leaving him to his solitary meal. Nor did she return again until, rapping on the table, he summoned her and asked to be shown his room. With a scornful look at a man who could be so utterly unresponsive to the offer of polite conversation, she led the way to a very small, barely-furnished chamber, showed him in and left him; and he, with the same bewildered air that he had worn ever since reaching the town, slowly took off his clothes and got into bed, although it was hardly yet dark. In a few minutes the strain of the past twenty-four hours was relaxed, and he was fast asleep.

CHAPTER V

OUTWARD BOUND

Rube awakened before dawn without being called, but with a momentary feeling of terror lest he should have overslept himself. The sound of a neighbouring church clock striking five reassured him, and hurriedly dressing he made his way downstairs, paid his modest bill to the sleepy landlord, who was peering out into the grey of the early morning, and rapidly passed along the wharves in the direction of the ship which had been pointed out to him the previous afternoon. Arriving alongside, he was surprised to see how little bustle and apparent preparation for seafaring was in evidence. Several men were slouching about the decks, and one energetic individual was bellowing occasional orders in an exceedingly loud voice, but beyond that the vessel might, for all he could see, have been going to stay where she was indefinitely. Presently, however, he noticed a little group coming with swaying steps up the wharf, and soon they were alongside, several of them evidently suffering from their potations of the previous evening. Then the tall patriarchal figure of the Captain appeared, stepped on board, and instantly the ship wakened into life.

All unaware of what was expected of him, Rube stood on deck just where he had first stepped over the side, his few belongings in his grip-sack lying by him, until a short, thick-set man, with a face like unpolished mahogany, came up to him and said: ‘Naow, wut yew doin’ here—hain’t shipped as passenger, hev ye? Them yewr duds? Get ’em below and be mighty smart abaout it, ’less you want consid’ble trouble.’ Mechanically he obeyed the man’s actions more than his words, which were, indeed, more than half of them almost unintelligible to him. Going forward in the direction indicated by his interlocutor, and finding his way below, he entered a large apartment wrapped in the densest gloom, and it was not until somebody (who, he could not see) struck a light, that he was able to discern its outlines, to see all around it bunks, some occupied by bundles of clothing and miscellaneous objects, and others by sleeping men. The atmosphere of this dark den was foul in the extreme—so much so, in fact, that he felt choking—and, without losing any time, he pushed his belongings into the nearest corner that presented itself and hastened on deck.

The next hour passed with him like a fevered dream. What he was doing or why he was doing it he knew not at all; for is there any creature more helpless and ignorant than a grown-up man who, for the first time in his life, takes part in the work of a ship putting out to sea? The very language is unintelligible. Everything is so new, so strange, and when presently to these mysteries is added the curious staggering motion of the ship, the neophyte’s plight is a most unhappy one. But it may be doubted whether of all the much-advertised remedies for sea-sickness there are any so effectual as being kept at work, allowed no respite, no moment to brood over the physical inconveniences that assail the candidate for sea honours. The remedy is a terrible one, it is true, but that it is effectual is equally true, and so Rube found it. But when he was ordered aloft to loose a sail he gazed piteously up the rigging and mentally commended himself to the care of God. For as the ship was just feeling the inroll of the wide sea, and putting on a most disconcerting motion, it appeared to him perfectly impossible that he should be able to get up aloft and down again alive. Added to this was the fact that he had not the remotest conception of what he was intended to do. But a stalwart Portuguese standing near him when the order was given murmured, ‘Kem along, Greenie; I shows you haow,’ and, gratefully willing, in spite of his wretched bodily condition, he clumsily clambered up the rigging after his mentor, followed by a perfect hurricane of opprobrium from the officer on deck, who felt justly angered at his most reprehensible want of smartness. He gained the foretopsail yard, and then, despite all his earnest endeavours to learn from the Portuguese what he was supposed to do, was so overcome with nausea that he could do nothing but hold on, just hanging there, a limp, swaying body, unconscious of everything around and about him in the utter misery of his inner man.

Perhaps it is as well that we draw a veil over the proceedings of the next few days. To follow a novice like Rube through such an ordeal as he was now undergoing, while it might certainly be interesting, could not fail, if faithfully reported, to be very distressing to anybody possessing a scintilla of sympathy. Let it, then, suffice to say that on the third morning at daybreak Rube, while sitting between the main stays keeping the look-out, began to realise that an interest in his surroundings was rapidly beginning. Also, for the first time since he had left home, he found himself thinking of how matters might be going on at the farm, and then, as he pictured father and mother coming down to the morning meal and offering up a prayer for the absent one, his heart melted, familiar words of prayer formed upon his lips, he bowed his head and sought the ante-chamber of the King. And, for the first time since he had received the news that had wrought so tremendous a change in his life, he coupled with his prayers the name of Priscilla, that she might be blessed and helped wherever she might be, and that her path in life might be made infinitely smoother for her than she had, innocently enough, made his for him.

While engaged in this sacred reverie he allowed his head to droop upon his hand, and became for the time utterly unconscious of his surroundings.

And so it came to pass that the second mate, whose watch it happened to be at the time, making his periodical prowl round the deck to see that all was in order, peered up at the look-out place and saw, as he thought, the watchman asleep. His next move was to procure a bucket of water, which he launched with accurate aim at Rube’s crouching form. Rube started upright, gasping and full of bewilderment at this strange thing that had befallen him. But he was not left long in doubt, for almost immediately came a storm of profanity, interspersed with grim warnings as to the kind and quantity of evil that would befall him if ever again he went to sleep on his look-out. At the first opportunity Rube essayed to reply, and point out that he was not asleep, not knowing, poor fellow, that no excuses of the kind are ever accepted on board ship. His few stammered words only brought the bucket flying at his head, and being, after all, a sensible young fellow, he took this rough hint to mean that the only possible course for him to pursue, under present conditions at any rate, was to take all that might be tendered to him, making no reply unless ordered.

But the Xiphias was not at all a bad ship. We may go farther, and say she was a good ship, because Captain Hampden, stern grey Quaker that he was, discountenanced all ill-usage of the crew that was not, to his mind, absolutely necessary. And as he, being part owner, had provided his crew with a plentiful supply of fairly good food, another great source of misery on board ship was removed from them. But still the life for a time seemed very hard to our hero, and would have been much harder but for his magnificent physique and his splendid patience. Moreover, he now found much comfort and a grand outlet for his long pent-up affections in ministering to the many needs of his hapless shipmates. For they, like himself, were drawn largely from inland dwelling people, and several of them were much more helpless than he. They had come to sea all unwittingly, without the slightest foreknowledge of what awaited them, just as he had, and therefore, of necessity, it would be some considerable time before they could settle down to the stolid endurance which is absolutely necessary for all those who go down to the sea in sailing ships.

A week elapsed, during which all hands were gradually being shaken down into their several grooves. Every man on board had been allotted his post in the boats or as a shipkeeper against the day of battle with the monarchs of the deep. The various green hands had now some of their greenness mellowed, and were learning, or had learned, to get aloft and do something else beside hold on tightly when they got there. But this was the smallest part—the mere rudiments, as it were—of their education. Sailors on board whaling ships are, of course, required to be fairly smart aloft, fairly smart at the ordinary avocations of a sailor; but the principal object of their life is that they shall be smart boatmen, and herein they differ entirely from any other merchant seafarers whatever. And this was soon made evident to them, for at the first opportunity, the weather being fine enough to admit of boats being lowered with a crew of absolutely incompetent men without danger of those valuable vessels being damaged, all hands, except four retained to handle the ship under the charge of the captain, were sent away to practise boatmanship.

This was a severe trial, and all the green hands suffered much. But even here Rube’s patience and muscular development stood him in good stead—saved him, in fact, from the energetic attentions lavishly bestowed by the officer and harpooner of his boat upon the other occupants. It must be confessed that he felt many misgivings upon being so near that great heaving blue surface as he was in the frail whaleboat. Different (and so much harder) as his life had already been on board the ship from all his previous experiences, it was ease and comfort as compared with this apparent tempting of fortune in a mere cockleshell. However, given sufficient energy on the part of the teachers, a modicum of courage and sufficient docility on the part of the taught, men can speedily accommodate themselves to any alteration in their habits of life, no matter how great it may be, and so, after three days of tremendously hard training, Captain Hampden expressed himself satisfied that his newly-gathered crew of clodhoppers might safely be taken into battle with the great sperm whale, and have a reasonable chance of emerging therefrom victorious. The weather had, mercifully to those new-comers, been fairly fine for the time of year—late autumn—although the wind had hung persistently from the S.E., thus hindering their progress greatly; but one morning at daybreak, the sky lowering threateningly, they were suddenly attacked by a severe gale from the N.E. Amid the hoarse cries of the officers and the blundering but hearty efforts of the crew, sail was shortened to the two close-reefed topsails and foresail, and the old Xiphias fled southward at a great rate for her. Then it was that Reuben, being sent aloft upon some errand of fastening a loose end, was suddenly seized with an attack of giddiness and fell, an inert mass, into the sea. In a wonderfully short space of time the vessel was rounded to and a boat lowered and manned, not by her own crew, but by picked men capable of handling her as she should be handled. So smart were their efforts that in less than ten minutes they came up with the helpless form of Rube as he lay unconscious upon the surface. He was seized and hauled into the boat, brought on board, and immediately subjected to the orthodox operations for restoring life to the apparently drowned. Long and carefully they toiled to bring him back to life, and at last succeeded in doing so, but when he opened his eyes upon the world again all the details of his previous life seemed as if they had been completely obliterated. Dismissed to the forecastle, he groped forward like a man suddenly awakened from a long dream, and to all the inquiries of his shipmates he turned a blank face, an uncomprehending demeanour.

But his grand bodily powers enabled him to return to his duties almost immediately, and from thenceforward, strangely enough, he seemed to assimilate all that was taught him with wonderful ease—in fact, as the hard-bitten officer to whose watch he belonged said: ‘Thet big hayseed o’ mine seems as if ’e was a born sailorman.’ So fast did he learn that his watchmates became absurdly jealous of him—a waste of attention on their part, since of it he took not the slightest notice whatever—seemed, indeed, really incapable of doing so.

Captain Hampden became interested in this peculiar development, and occasionally condescended to ply him with questions as to his previous experience, but all in vain. Nothing could be got out of him, and, baffled, the good old skipper had to content himself by saying to his chief officer: ‘Wall, at any rate, we seem to hev gut hold of a mighty good man.’ And gradually his quiet perseverance in well doing, the impossibility of making him angry, and the readiness with which he would always help to the utmost of his power any of his shipmates that were in trouble, won him a high place in the hearts of all on board; even the Portuguese (never very friendly to men of northern breed) could not withhold from him some uncouth tributes of affection.

And so the ship made her way slowly down to the Line, failing, however, to the disgust of the officers, to raise a whale for the first month after her departure from port. But the time was well spent, for all hands, by dint of incessant practice, were now in a high state of efficiency, only requiring their baptism of fire, if it may be called so—their initiation into the art and mystery of whale-fighting—to make them as good a crew as any whaling skipper could desire to have under his command. All bullying, hazing, and what we should call brutality, had ceased. The ship was quite as peaceful as any ‘limejuicer,’ and it was easy to see from the contented faces and pleasant remarks of the officers how well satisfied they were with the progress made by the men under their command in the direction of becoming decent sailormen.

CHAPTER VI

DISILLUSIONMENT

Perhaps it is high time that we returned for a while to the career of our heroine in her new sphere. It must be remembered that she, as so many other young women have done, took a leap in the dark, committing herself and her future to the care of a man about whose antecedents and character she knew absolutely nothing, having only in the few short days of their acquaintance seen him at his very best. But such was the glamour with which she had invested her hero that, although she was startled and troubled in mind by his brutal language and still more brutal treatment of the men under his command from the first hour that she came on board his ship, she attributed it all to the necessities of a captain’s position. Every oath made her shudder, every blow made her wince, yet she bore it all without remark, as belonging to a new order of things of which she had hitherto been entirely ignorant, and upon the merits of which at present she felt herself quite unable to give an opinion. Perhaps, had she been able to hear the remarks that were passed by the crew to one another when they thought such remarks might safely be made, she would have shuddered still more. But, poor girl, all such warning words were hidden from her, neither did she know—how could she, indeed?—that her husband bore the unenviable reputation of being the hardest skipper of all the hard-bitten crowd of such men sailing from the whaling ports of North America. Still, even her trustful heart could not fail to be wounded at the incessant cruelty which she was now compelled to witness.

The crew, driven on board at the last moment before sailing like a pack of cowed dogs, were a set of miserable ragamuffins, taken, apparently, because none others could be obtained at any price. There were only two Americans among them—two poor lads from the Western States, who had run away from home to go to sea; the rest were representatives of almost as many races as there were members. This, in itself, made for the safety of the officers—made the brutality much less likely to be resented successfully, because, among that medley of foreigners, there could be no banding together for a common purpose of revenge. Not that such an event was at all probable, because, according to the fixed plan pursued on board the majority of such vessels, the precaution was taken while yet the crew, who were nearly all green hands, were in the throes of nausea and bewilderment at their strange surroundings, to beat them, with or without pretext, until their spirits were thoroughly broken and the possibility of their retaliating was hopelessly remote. Captain Da Silva, in spite of the presence of his wife, which might have been expected to have a humanising influence over him, was this voyage more savagely brutal than ever he had been before. His four officers, who knew him well, and who were all eager followers of his plans (had to be, indeed, in order to keep their position with him), confessed one to another that the old man seemed as if he wanted to show his bride how black a demon he could be. He said, not by way of excuse, but apparently stating a mournful fact, in conversation with his officers, that in all his fishing he had never had such a crowd to deal with as he had got this time, and before they had been at sea a week he discussed with the officers elaborate plans for running across to the Azores, driving his present crew overboard and shipping a crowd of his fellow-countrymen therefrom. But this was going a little too far, for three of his officers were Americans, and they by no means relished the prospect of having an entire crew of Portuguese on board an American ship. They felt that it would be indeed exchanging the devils they knew for the devils they did not know, and, as far as they dared, made this plain to their brutal commander. And he, wise as well as wicked, took the hint, for he could not afford to lose such splendid whalemen as his officers had proved themselves to be. So, instead of working to the eastward, they shaped a course for the Line, and met with such good fortune in the shape of weather that, without the parting of a rope-yarn, they found themselves at the end of a fortnight well within the Tropics.

It was one of the characteristics of Da Silva’s career that he always seemed to have extraordinary luck. This voyage was no exception, for no sooner was the vessel shipshape, the whaling gear rigged, and all fishing preparations made, than he, taking the masthead trip one morning, sighted a grand school of sperm whales. Instantly his voice rang throughout the ship, calling all hands to action, and even those unhappy men who had had the hardest experience of his cruelty could not withhold a tribute of admiration for his wonderful powers of command, presence of mind, and exact knowledge of how to do the right thing at the right moment.

That scratch crew of wastrels, broken-spirited as they were, seemed to catch a spark of his enthusiasm, and exerted themselves in extraordinary ways in order to gain his approval.

Priscilla, utterly neglected amid this hurly-burly, sat perched on the taffrail looking with wide-eyed wonderment upon the busy scene. A thrill of terror seized her as she saw her husband, standing erect in the stern of the first boat lowered, urging his crew, with an unbroken stream of profanity, to the highest efforts of which they were capable. She could see the whales, but she hardly knew what was afoot. All that was real to her was that the ship was deserted by almost all hands, including the commander, only three or four being left to handle the sails. So there she sat solitary, alarmed, full of fears for her husband’s safety, for the result of this tremendous manœuvre, the object of which she only dimly understood. The cries from the two men at the masthead to those on deck she understood not at all, nor did she dare to ask the helmsman for any information for fear that her innocent inquiry might reach her husband’s ears later and be fiercely resented by him. But he had obtained such a hold over her that even now she did not blame him: she only felt sorry that he should not have had time (as she put it to herself) to acquaint her with the reason for his hurried departure.

Meanwhile the five boats, their crews straining at the oars to the utmost limit of their strength, sped away at right angles to the direction in which the whales lay. The Captain kept the lead, not that the men in the other boats were not doing their best, but that he had a picked crew, and that every man of them was working as if in imminent bodily fear of some terrible punishment unless he exerted all his muscular power. The oars rose and fell with the regularity of steam pistons, the water foamed past the boats, but no other sound was heard save the laboured panting of the men and the low, hissing execrations of the Captain. It is popularly supposed that when rowing boats after whales there is a great deal of shouted encouragement, either kindly or the reverse, that the men themselves are apt to break into song, as Dr. Beale permits himself to say, ‘The men sang the time-honoured whaling chant of “Away, my boys, away, my boys, it’s time for us to go,”’ but when it is remembered how very slight a sound, even at the distance of miles, will suffice to alarm the valuable quarry, it will at once be seen that experienced whale hunters would not be likely to do such a foolish thing as to make unnecessary noises, even supposing that they had breath to spare for doing so.

At last, when the rowers felt as if their arms would drop off at the shoulders, the Captain’s deep voice was heard saying, ‘Peak oars, step mast, up sprit.’ These actions were immediately copied by each of the other boats, and, in three minutes from the time they had ceased rowing, the five boats, under the steady stress of their big sails, were bounding over the bright sea before the wind down on to the whales. The propulsion with the oars had only been resorted to for the purpose of obtaining a good weather gauge. That once reached, and the sails set, the boats’ heads were turned at right angles to the course they had been pursuing so that they might now, with the wind almost astern, run down upon the whales at high speed, and with the least possible amount of splash.

It was a splendid sight, that group of unconscious monsters calmly and methodically pursuing their way, quietly attending to their own business of procuring food and enjoying their life; and here, close at hand, stealing upon them like pirates upon a helpless merchantman, this little flotilla of destroyers. Each officer and harpooner was now in the throes of expectation, every nerve tense, all their hopes high that they would reach their prey before the periodical descent of the whales took place. In nine cases out of ten this would not have been the case, but here again, Captain Da Silva’s luck appeared to be in the ascendant, for, as if the boats were living creatures, full of eager desire to come to close quarters with the enemy, they leaped forward with ever-accelerating speed, until the foremost whale, a large bull of about seventy barrels (or, say, sixty feet in length) was only a couple of lengths ahead of the skipper’s boat. Hoarsely he growled, ‘Stand up, Jose!’ The harpooner’s crouching form straightened itself, and, raising the harpoon in both hands while steadying himself by his left thigh in the hollow of the clumsy cleat, he waited, a heroic figure, until, by a skilful sweep of the steering oar, the boat swung end on to the whale’s broad side, and struck it, at the same moment as the harpoon flew from those nervous hands and buried itself in the quivering blubber up to the hitches. Calmly pitching the stray line out of the box over the boat’s side, the harpooner turned to go aft with the face of a man knowing that his duty had been well done. Without taking the slightest notice of the writhings of the tortured leviathan so near or the tremendous commotion in the water, he superintended the rolling up of the sail, the unshipping of the mast, and the passing of it aft where it would be out of the way of the operations.

THE WHALE WENT STEADILY DOWN, DOWN, DOWN.

P. 49.

While the crew of the boat were thus engaged the Captain, with that skill for which he was justly famous, had, by means of the big steering oar, manipulated the boat so that she lay at a safe distance from the whale. The hardly-pressed monster, in orthodox fashion, finding that he could not free himself from the galling weapon, descended steadily, taking out line at a gentle rate, while the Captain changed ends with the harpooner, unsheathed his favourite lance, and awaited the return of the whale to the surface. While so doing, his countenance was a study in ferocity. The immediate prospect of bloodshed seemed to arouse in him all the animal, and, as he glared fiercely around upon his crew, they hardly dared meet his eye, so terrible did he look. But he was compelled to forego his delightful occupation for a while, and remain as quiet as it was possible for him to do while the whale went steadily down, down, down. Meanwhile, by a piece of amazing good fortune, each of the other boats had succeeded in getting fast to a whale without any accident, and now they were all engaged in the same manner as the Captain’s boat, waiting, with such patience as the officers could command, for the rising to the surface of their respective whales. The remainder of the school, having apparently lost all control of themselves, wandered aimlessly around the little company of boats, going slowly backwards and forwards, thrusting their great heads out of the water without apparently the slightest idea of what to do or where to go, and arousing in the minds of the officers, especially in that of the Captain, the fiercest resentment at their inability to take more advantage of so splendid an opportunity as was now offered them. After a wait of nearly half an hour, all the harpooned whales came to the surface at nearly the same moment, and immediately the scene underwent a change as complete as it is possible to imagine. The wounded monsters, rushing frantically in every direction in their vain efforts to escape, the fierce guttural yells of the officers as they plied their slender, gleaming lances upon those vast bodies, the welling fountains of blood that befouled the bright sea surface, all went to make up a picture of savagery which could hardly be equalled by that presented in any land battle. So successful was the conduct of this first encounter that hardly two hours had elapsed since the boats first left the ship when the whole five whales were dead, the boats cleared up, and all was in readiness for the prey to be taken alongside the ship. She, being well and smartly handled by the three or four people left on board, and having got well to windward of the area of battle, now ran down to where the Captain’s boat lay by the side of his dead whale. Having made the line fast to a hole in the whale’s fluke, he ordered his boat to run alongside the ship, and, climbing smartly on board, he superintended the hauling of the whale alongside. Now, the ship being hampered by that gigantic body made fast to her, it became necessary for the crews of the other boats to tow their whales as best they could in the direction of the vessel. Fearfully long and tedious was the process, and the impatience of the Captain rose to a height of almost maniacal fury, although he knew full well that every man was doing his utmost to perform the tremendous task allotted to him. Without a break they toiled until the sun was nearly setting, nor was one moment’s respite allowed them until the whole of the day’s catch was secured alongside and astern of the ship. Then, and not till then, the Captain shouted with a grudging note in his voice, ‘Mr. Court, send the hands to dinner.’ The order was repeated by the mate, and the men wearily dragged themselves below, where the food—cooked long ago—was awaiting them. But as they went the Captain shouted again, ‘Look lively now; yew wanter be on deck again in twenty minutes.’ Having delivered himself thus, he turned towards his cabin, where, for the first time that day, he greeted his wife. She, quite bewildered by the day’s proceedings, summoned up all her affection, and came to greet him with arms outspread, but he, glowering fiercely at her, said, ‘I got no time for fooling now; I got something else to think about.’

This rebuff reduced her to a pitiable state of mind, for it was utterly incomprehensible. That she had done anything to deserve it she could not feel, and, indeed, it was a strange thing that a man in the height of his success, having inaugurated his cruise in so splendid a fashion, with enormous profits lying only waiting to be realised, should be so hatefully morose and savage in his demeanour.

It was a puzzle beyond hope of solution. The meal was taken in utter silence, the food being bolted in truly animal fashion; and, while yet the last mouthfuls were being masticated, the skipper rose abruptly from his seat and said, ‘Now, then, Mr. Court, start the hands again.’ While they had been at dinner the shipkeepers had completed their task of getting the gear ready for cutting in, so that when the officers came on deck and summoned the hands it only remained to commence cutting in the whales at once. Loud orders resounded along the decks, but, for perhaps half a minute, there was no response, and this seemed to act upon the Captain maddeningly. Snatching a belaying-pin from the rail, he strode forward muttering curses, and, beating his weapon upon the scuttle hatch of the forecastle, he roared down into the gloomy cavern, ‘D’ ye want to be smoked out like a nest of hornets?’ Full of alarms, the weary men clambered up the steep ladder, but as the first one reached the deck he was met by a tremendous blow full in the face, which sent him reeling to the deck.

It must be admitted that captain and officers worked hardest of all; in fact, they seemed like men of steel rather than of flesh and blood, and even the weary seamen could hardly refuse a tribute of admiration to the way in which they were led. By midnight, under the glare of blazing cressets suspended from the davit heads, they had managed to cut in two of the whales, and had decapitated the remaining three, the great columnar heads being strung astern by hawsers. Then the Captain reluctantly gave orders that half the crew should retire for an hour while the other half busied themselves in making some sort of a clearance on the deck, which was now piled almost from end to end with blubber, and ankle-deep in oil. How speedily that hour passed for the privileged ones only they could tell. Indeed, it seemed but a moment before they were back at work again, and the other half were sent for the same brief period to rest. But the savage brute of a captain took no rest. He seemed superhuman, and when day dawned the whole of the spoil had been taken on board, with the exception of the three heads, for which no room could be found at present.

CHAPTER VII

A STRICKEN DEMON

It has been a frequent matter of remark, not merely by myself, but by all the writers with whom I have conversed who have ever interviewed old sailors on the subject of their experiences, how difficult it is for the latter to tell what they have seen. Their memories are most keen, but the mighty happenings they have witnessed seem to overwhelm their simple vocabulary, and they will suddenly break off in the midst of a splendid tale, and, holding up their hands in a gesture of despair, cry out, ‘Oh, God, if I could only tell ye what I’ve seen!’ I am led to think that perhaps it is this felt inability to do justice to the memory of what they have really seen that has often made sailors possessed of vivid imaginations invent magnificent lies, rushing by some curious mental paradox into the opposite extreme, from the sober recital of fact to an absurdly extravagant invention of fiction.

But be that as it may, there can be no doubt that even those who have been most successful in the attempt to transport their readers to the scenes which they themselves have witnessed, are often touched by the same feeling of inability, as the grandeur of the scenes they would fain depict flashes through their minds. They sit with poised pen—present, indeed, as to the body at their desks, but in spirit, by some unexplainable mystery, away back amid the surroundings of those former years, going through it all again. And thus they sit waiting, waiting, prisoners of hope, until relief comes in some commonplace word or thought, and the pen is re-started, to run perchance glibly enough until again arrested in like manner.

These reflections irresistibly arise as I recall similar scenes to the one which I would now describe: that splendid silken circle of sea and dome of sky just commencing to palpitate with the glories of the new day; those low, tender ranges of softest cloud like carelessly piled heaps of snowy down, with sober grey bases almost parallel with the horizon, and summits blushing sweetly with all the warm tints of the coming sun; through the eternal concave overhead running tremulous sprays of liveliest colour throbbing and changing incessantly on their background of deep violet, from which the modest stars are quietly fading before the advent of morning. Across the mirror-like surface of the ocean great splashes of colour come and go in never-ending progression, although there be never a cloud from which they may be reflected and their pure hues come direct from the impalpable ether around. And in the centre of it all, grating at first upon the mind as the only discordant note in the harmony otherwise reigning, is a ship surrounded by the greasy, mutilated carcasses of her spoil—that spoil which was so recently fulfilling the exhortation of that glorious hymn, ‘O ye whales, and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever.’ What a hideous scene of squalor it does appear, to be sure! Great shapeless masses of flesh and fat and bone, huge clots of black blood, an undefinable odour of death—for the time has not yet come for corruption to defile air as well as sea—and in the midst of it all, fiercely toiling, hacking, thrusting, tearing, yelling, blaspheming, are the slayers. From every pore the ship exudes oil warm from the body, at every roll a new extent of ‘sleeky’ water is thrust out from her slimy sides. Gradually, as the space in her main-hold known as the blubber-room becomes filled up, the limited area on deck is piled with the masses of blubber, and the oil which exudes from them fills up the carefully caulked decks and at each wallowing roll she makes rises against the bulwarks, which are almost as impervious as the deck itself. So inside, outside, half-way up the mainmast, she reeks with blood and grease, while the water all around is a seething mass of silent voracity. From who knows how far away the hungry denizens of the deep sea have hastened to the feast, summoned by some unerring sense, of which we know nothing at all. No one, as far as I know, has ever attempted to compute the number of the host of sharks alone which surround a whaleship while she secures her spoil; so I shall not try. It would be only a wild guess, after all, for they come and go incessantly in utmost haste, and as far as the eye can see the water is aboil with their strugglings to secure at least some portion of the great feast.

Of the other deep-sea citizens present I can say little. They are to be seen of course, but only occasionally, for this feast is peculiarly the shark’s great opportunity, and it is no easy matter for any other fish to displace him. In the air, the hungry self-invited guests may be few or many, according to the position of the ship. In the North Atlantic birds are far less plentiful than they are in the South, for some reason which I have never been able to find out, and consequently in this great scene of spoliation which I am now attempting to limn there were only about a dozen or twenty ’gulls.’

During its progress, as during the hunting, Priscilla sat on the top of the after-house motionless under the influence of some horrible fascination which she could not resist. She watched the lithe form of her saturnine husband as, leaning over the rail of the cutting-stage, he dealt blow after blow at the black and white masses beneath him, or occasionally varied his labours by a sidelong thrust which severed some thieving shark’s head from its body. But she noted that while he appeared to be doing more than any other member of the crew, his physical efforts never interfered with his mental energies in the oversight of his men. He seemed to know where every man was, and what he was, or ought to be, doing. An incessant stream of orders, threats, and cursings poured from his throat, which was apparently of brass, since it never got hoarse. The only physical sign of his vocal labours was the foam with which his raven-black beard was flecked.

Utterly brutal, utterly callous and heartless as she now knew her husband to be, she could not withhold from him a silent tribute of admiration for his powers of command and organisation, and for his courage. She felt shuddering pity for the poor men, who, against the most urgent calls of Nature to rest their tortured limbs, went fiercely toiling on as if only by that means could they avert sudden, violent death. Once or twice she gave vent to a low moan of compassion as she saw the Captain leap inboard with a tiger-like spring and fall upon some man whom his eagle eye had detected lagging behind the others, assailing him with the utmost ferocity by knocking him down, jumping on him, kicking him as if determined to do him to death. Again and again she turned to go, overcome by the horror of these constantly recurring scenes, but she could not: she was compelled to remain and witness them while powerless to help and unable even to pray that God would have mercy upon these poor wretches upon whom man—at least her man—had none.

What man has done, man can and will do unless restrained by powerful laws, and what was done amid such scenes as I am recalling was gentleness itself when compared with what went on aboard the galleys of ancient days—scenes which no modern writer has dared, or would dare, to put comprehensively into print. For even on board a whaler, where one man embodied all the law or justice obtainable by anybody, the blessed influences of Christianity in the modifying of cruelty were felt, and things were thus not nearly as bad as they might have been; nay, they were only in exceptional cases as bad as I have represented. This fact, I think, deserves special emphasis, because it goes to show that the majority of men in command of these ships, knowing full well that they were never likely to be called to account for any cruelties they might commit in the name of discipline, yet abstained from exercising their autocratic power, or only used it when it became undoubtedly necessary that they should do so.

Gradually the mighty task drew to its close. One by one the vast carcasses were cut adrift and floated away, each the centre of a writhing mass of hungry creatures fiercely fighting for places at the feast, which, great as it was, seemed but a trifle compared with the host of candidates for it. One by one the huge square ‘cases’ were hove up alongside and their bland contents ladled out into the tanks below. But when the last but one was being emptied, as it hung, a weight of some twenty tons, suspended from the cutting-in falls, Captain Da Silva went to the waist, and, leaning up against the case, looked down to see whether or not the precious spermaceti was draining away from some cut in its walls, as he suspected it was. As he did so the ship rolled ever so slightly, and without any warning the massive chain slings which held the case aloft tore out. It fell like an avalanche descending, a big flap of ‘white horse’ or head integument curling round the Captain’s body and whirling him after it into the fathomless depths. It was so terribly sudden that Priscilla was momentarily stunned, but with returning breath she uttered a wild cry of terror and fell fainting, her overwrought condition of nerves unable to bear this last great shock. For one moment the crew also stood like statues, but ere one could count five, the third mate and second boat-steerer had leaped into the sea after their commander, although they knew (none better) of the swarming sharks and the many other reasons why they should be unsuccessful. But all traces of him had vanished, and realising that not only were they most dangerously situated, but that they could see better from above, they climbed on deck again with all the speed they might, reaching it at the same moment as Captain Da Silva’s head appeared on the other side above the rail.

For a few moments all who witnessed his rising stared with starting eyes at what they deemed to be his wraith, but his hoarse voice, full of anger, roused them instantly from their brief lethargy. ‘Naouw, then, whutye all gapping at, like a lot er—— suckers’s y’air. Git along wi’ thet work, ’relse I’ll be ’mong ye in mighty short order, naouw I’m telling ye.’ And each man sprang to his task as does a mettled horse when the lash falls unexpectedly across his flanks. And Captain Da Silva strode off muttering maledictions. Perhaps it was all the formula of thanksgiving which he knew: certainly no word of praise for the miracle of his escape out of the very jaws of death crossed his lips. He had been carried down by that long sliver of skin which had enwrapped him and held him tightly bound to the mighty mass of the case until he felt as if his head were a boiler under a full pressure of steam. But as the ‘case’ sank, by some mysterious influence it spun round, or rather revolved, for its motion was but slow, and in doing so it unwound the clinging band from the skipper’s body. Never having lost his presence of mind, and being as nearly amphibious as the rest of his island countrymen, he sprang upward to the surface, just grazing the bilge on the opposite side of the ship to that from which he had descended, and grasping a bight of the main sheet which dangled invitingly alongside, he swung himself aboard, ready and alert to resume the tyranny he loved.

The whole affair of his departure and return had been so dramatically sudden that Captain Da Silva was in his cabin shouting for Priscilla to give him dry garments before she had recovered from her swoon. His angry demands brought the trembling steward at his best gait. To his breath-bated inquiry the skipper shouted:

‘Whar’s Mrs. Da Silva, yew black beast; whar’s my wife?’

‘Please, sah, de madam’s done gone swounded, an’ I ain’t can fotch ’er to yit. I ——’

But flinging him aside as if he had been a bundle of rags, the skipper rushed on deck to where Priscilla was sitting up wearily passing a hand over her dazed eyes and wondering what strange thing had befallen her. He seized her arm roughly, and in tones of deepest scorn demanded what sort of —— game she called this? Was he to wait in his wet clothes while she lolled about on deck playing the (more unsavoury adjectives) fool? Mechanically she staggered to her feet, and, like some unreasoning but faithful animal, tottered towards the cabin. I doubt if she would have been surprised had her husband accelerated her progress by a kick, to such a numbness of brain had she come. But she did his bidding, accepted all his blasphemous grumbling, and made no sign. For she was, in the fullest sense of that much-abused brace of words, heart-broken. Her spirit was crushed, never to awake again as it had been; her love was dead, and only patient, animal-like obedience remained. Did any compunction arise in the man’s mind for what he had done to that trusting, loving woman? Those who think so little know the capacity of man for cruelty. A grim smile lit up his diabolically handsome features as he noted her quiet performance of his commands, and although he said no word it was easy to see with what fiendish pleasure he realised this new proof of his power to rule others with a rod of iron.

Without pausing to do more than glance at his injuries—one long black and green bruise which wound twice round his body, and another extending from his right thigh to his heel, with the skin broken in many places—he hastily dressed himself in dry clothes and, without casting another glance at the submissive figure of his wife, rushed on deck. Fortunately for all of them, the crew were working hard to secure the masses of junk (solid pieces, each several tons in weight, cut from the whale’s head), lashing jaw-bones, clearing away try-works, getting up mincing-machine and tricing up gear out of the way of the all-pervading grease. He cast one comprehensive, scowling glance around, which deepened in its frown when he found no cause of complaint, and at once assumed sole command. For the next hour his orders flew like volleys of musketry, spurring on the almost spent men to give up the last ounce of their strength. And then suddenly, as if God had taken pity on those hapless men, the tyrant’s indomitable strength and pluck gave out together, and he sank to the deck moaning feebly, ‘Take me below, —— ye, take me below.’ Even with what seemed the last breath he needs must curse those upon whom he was now utterly dependent for all his wants.

So, inert, all his great energy vanished, and his wiry limbs hanging limply as loose ropes’ ends, he was borne below to his bunk, his appearance in this guise startling Priscilla again, but arousing in her now no such feelings as those with which she had witnessed his disappearance over the rail so short a time before. With quiet dignity she directed the bearers where to lay him, thanked them, and dismissed them. Then, left alone with the man for whom she had given up her life, and more than her own life, had she but known, she went about the duty of attendance upon him methodically, carefully, but with no more feeling than if he had been an utter stranger. All that she could do for him she did, but of affection in her ministrations there was no trace. Presently with a feeling of relief, such as usually accompanies the successful conclusion of a difficult task, she saw him pass from coma to sleep, heard him breathe naturally, and watched the ghastly pallor of his face give place to its healthy olive hue. Then she took some needlework and sat down by his side, ready to attend upon him when he woke, determined to do her very utmost for him dutifully, and hoping to make faithful service take the place of the love she knew she would never feel for him again.

Perhaps I may be pardoned for anticipating criticism here by a word or two. I know well that women can, and do, show love of the deepest, truest, holiest kind for men who not merely speak to them harshly, but beat, starve, or ill-treat them in every way. But Priscilla was not one of these women. It may be, too, that her love for Ramon Da Silva was not love in the best sense of the word, but merely a hurricane gust of passion that for a season had changed the whole surface of her being, while leaving unruffled the great depths below. I do not know, nor do I care to dogmatise, but of this I am sure—that there are many Priscillas about, worthy of all the love of a good man, and fully capable of returning it, whose love, calmly, thoughtfully given, would be changed into utter dislike and contempt for the once loved one if they should have the misfortune to discover him to be cruel or disgusting. And for one I dare not say that they are therefore in any way worthy of blame, or are not perfectly true and lovable women.

Now ensued a period of calm satisfaction for all hands, tempered only by the knowledge that it would soon come to an end. The exceedingly heavy toil of mincing the blubber, boiling down the oil, storing it in casks, and disposing those casks in easily accessible positions about the decks, went on without intermission, but quietly. Every man worked as if the knowledge of his tyrant’s impotence, for a time at any rate, had supplied him with an incentive. But the Captain was suffering utter torment below. Ordinarily he was quite wanting in what we vaguely speak of as nerves: he worried about nothing. Now, however, his great strength entirely gone from him, knowing how large a task was in hand on deck, and knowing, too, how glad was every man on board that he, their despot, was helpless, he raged and fumed, and thereby retarded his recovery greatly. But for those who came in contact with him, this time was a terrible one. His poor wife and the negro steward lived in utter terror of him, although physically he was powerless to do them harm.

Perhaps it may be thought that too severe a description of this man has been given, and that thereby some injustice has been done to men generally. But if so, I would like to ask objectors whether they have never had the misfortune to know anybody, not necessarily a man, who would, given the opportunity have behaved quite as badly as Captain Da Silva. God knows, I have no wish to libel any of my fellow men or women, but I am absolutely certain that but for the grace of God, the sweet influences of Christianity, there are very few of us who can be trusted with absolute power over our fellows. And if any doubt were possible, surely the records of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children would dispel it. The sight of helplessness does in some infernal way seem to generate in many minds an irresistible desire to inflict suffering upon the helpless. And it needs all our faith in God, as well as all our recollection of the tender love that fills so many hearts, to keep us from feeling that mankind in general is possessed by all those attributes which we have agreed to consider as the characteristics of Satan. Of course, like all other qualities, cruelty needs special opportunities for its full development as well as a deliberate cultivation. And for this reason I have never been able to understand why so many otherwise level-headed people should object to corporal punishment for the perpetrators of cruelty, since it is almost invariably the case that cruel people are most tenderly solicitous for the care of their own susceptibilities to pain. Exceptions there are to this rule, of course, and Captain Da Silva was one. No amount of corporal punishment would have deterred him from being again the merciless monster he was by nature, given fitting opportunity; for he, as I have already endeavoured to point out, had an almost Chinese disregard of personal suffering. But even he was certainly no worse for the tasting in his own proper person of some of the pains he was wont to bestow lavishly upon others.

Only two persons wished him speedily well, and for obvious reasons. They were his personal attendants. The chief mate, whose business brought him below periodically to report progress, always had to summon up all his courage to face his suffering chief, always returned to upper air again acutely conscious of relief, although he was a man of great ability and resource, and, moreover, had the comforting knowledge that under his (comparatively) mild rule the work was slipping along on greased wheels. But (and this is one of the peculiarly subtle depravities of some natures) he could not help feeling that his commander’s irritation at his own helplessness was in no way lessened by the knowledge that affairs were going on quite smoothly without his interference—that, in fact, it would have been in some measure an alleviation of his sufferings could he have known that, bereft of his oversight, matters were at sixes and sevens. And each time the mate came to report, and gave him the bland information that all was going as well as possible, the men were working with a will, the weather continued fine, and the blubber was yielding most richly, the skipper was instant in cross-examination on every detail, apparently in the hope that he might somehow find occasion to vent his long pent-up spleen upon someone else beside his wife and the negro steward.

Nothing transpired, however, to gratify him, and at the end of the sixth day from his accident the mate reported all oil barrelled and half of it stowed; that the crew were busy now with lye and sand cleaning up; that the mastheads were manned, and—— But right in the middle of his flow of words came the most thrilling cry of ‘Blo-o-o-o-w.’ The mate stopped in the middle of a word and looked round listeningly. But his skipper, maddened almost beyond endurance at the knowledge of his own helplessness, and that his subordinates would now have an opportunity of showing their capabilities without any overlordship of his, hurled at the listening mate one long yell of profanity which had the effect of sending the latter scampering rabbit-wise up the tortuous cuddy stairs on deck.

Fortunately for Priscilla, the raging emotions of her husband, conjoined with his bodily weakness, had the effect of rendering him utterly helpless both in mind and body. For a while she busied herself quietly in such necessary attentions as she was able to render, then, hearing as in some realistic dream the weird tumult on deck, and feeling her own utter loneliness, she did that which is, thank God, open to us all, if in varying degrees. She lifted her tired heart to God, remembering with a bitter pang of repentance the many perfunctory repetitions of ‘Our Father’ she had performed; a remembrance which brought a host of others in its wake. The quiet times of family worship she had yawned over behind her hand, the glorious words of Holy Writ passing her then unlistening ears like meaningless jargon, the tender father who had never given her a harsh word during her recollection of him, the faithful, plodding mother, whom she had forsaken at the lightest word of a stranger, and the dog-like devotion of—— But no; that thought must not be encouraged. From her uneasy seat she slid to her knees, and from her overloaded heart poured forth her unspoken prayers—not for deliverance, but for strength, for peace of mind, for knowledge how to do and say the right thing and word at the right time. And as the subtle communications passed between that suffering heart and the Centre of all Solace, the blessed dew of peace descended upon her spirit, and she felt that the victory was won, for the present at any rate.

Meanwhile, though unheeded by her, the uproar on deck had reached its climax, then suddenly ceased, and a profound silence reigned. She sat, listening intently, but in nowise alarmed: she felt past all that. Until presently a comical black head, with wide white eyeballs, protruded from the state-room door. Its glance, fearfully questing, caught hers, and in reply to her whispered inquiry came a murmur: ‘Dey’s awl goen away, Mistis; on’y me an’ de cook, carpenter an’ cooper an’ shipkeepers am lef’. But it looks laik a mighty fine school of spam whales dey’s onter, an’ ef dey gets um may be de skipper please, an’t it?’

CHAPTER VIII

A DISASTROUS DAY

Undoubtedly there was a certain fierce delight in Mr. Court’s mind, as well as great relief, when he fled precipitately on deck from the presence of the terrible man who was his present commander. As any other man of his abilities and bravery would have done, he felt a certain measure of contempt for himself that he should be so meekly subservient to one whom he believed in his heart of hearts to be no braver or more skilful than he was himself; but the deeply ingrained habit of discipline prevented that feeling from reaching its logical conclusion. And, unlike the Dago, he, being an Anglo-Saxon, also felt a certain compassion for a man stricken down by accident in the performance of his duty, and utterly unwilling to take the smallest advantage thereof. More, in some dim manner he felt that if his part were well played now, there might be some alleviation in the lot of that pale saint (for in such a light had the mate come to regard Priscilla—you cannot keep family secrets on board a ship); and so, fired with all the best ambitions that can energise a man, he sprang on deck, every sense keenly alert.

The air was full of wailing cries of ‘Bl-o-o-o-o-w.’ All hands were waiting ready by their boats with an air of expectation, as if each man was taking the highest personal interest in the outcome of the present adventure. The second mate, standing on the little bridge over the wheel conning the ship, no sooner saw his superior than he said, ‘School o’ th’ biggest sparm whale ever I sot eyes on, sir. Ain’t one under a hundred an’ thutty bar’l, I swar. An’ thar’s one—ef he ain’t the father of all the whales ever bo’n I ain’t ever seen one before.’

For all answer the mate shouted ‘’Way boats! Down from aloft.’ And for the next few minutes the whirring of patent sheaves, as the graceful boats ran waterwards, the hoarse, gasping orders given by the boat-headers, and the sharp concussions in the water, filled the air. What a scene of furious energy manifested by men who a little while before were lolling uncouthly about as if incapable of any exertion whatever, under no matter what stimulus or provocation! Within five minutes the ship was deserted by all her crew, save only the discontented half-dozen whose unhappy lot it was to abide by the stuff and labour monotonously to keep the ship as far to windward of the arena of battle as might be. In every man’s heart there was a deep sensation of thankfulness that one ominous figure was absent from this fray—that for once they were free to do their best unhampered by the paralysing knowledge that, whatever they did, their efforts would surely be rewarded by savage treatment which they must endure, because no safe way of rebellion presented itself. How the rowers did lay to their oars! How keenly when, a sufficient weather gauge being reached, the sails were set and the boats bounded blithesomely over the blue waves under the stress of the freshening breeze, did every man peer forward for sight of their gigantic prey; and how fervently each harpooner hoped that he might be privileged to strike the first blow!

I have never been able to understand how it is that all other seamen seem to have cherished contemptuous feelings towards the whale-fishers. That they always have done so is undoubtedly true, and possibly the foundation of so utterly false a sentiment may have been that it is but seldom that ordinary seafarers have been able to witness the mighty conflict between men and whales. Usually when sailors meet whalers it is at a time when the latter are conserving their energies against the coming of the next great fight, or are greasily labouring to harvest their spoil, an occupation which needs much true appreciation of the romantic to see anything in it at all worthy of admiration. In the rare cases that have occurred when sailors have been in at the death of a whale, they have been simply stricken dumb with admiring wonder, and thenceforward have enjoyed a vicarious popularity as the retailers of yarns in the dog-watches to a gaping but utterly sceptical crowd of their shipmates.

So, swiftly the four boats sped whalewards, the mate always ahead, for his intense nervous energy had communicated itself to his crew, who, not content with the pace being made under the pressure of the wind, had each stealthily seized a paddle, and were thrusting them deeply into the hissing waters alongside at every opportunity that was presented, as if their overmastering impatience could not let them rest for one instant. Strange to say, on this occasion, although it seemed to the mate that, large as the whales were, they should have long ago made their periodical descent, they did not do so, but lolled about on the bright sea-surface in an orderly series of rows which converged, until at the apex, as it were, of the whole school lay the gigantic leader of whom the second mate had spoken in such breathless terms of admiration. There could at last be no doubt about the matter: that school of whales had seen their aggressors coming, and for some mysterious reason had decided that on this occasion they would not obey their natural promptings bidding them flee, but would await the foe and do battle with him in befitting manner, with never a doubt as to the issue.

The reason for this strange behaviour could not, of course, be known to the mate, since even the keenest of human observers has never been able to penetrate the motives influencing what we are pleased to call the ‘lower animals’ in their pursuance of any abnormal course of behaviour; although there can be no doubt that had he known why the whales thus awaited him, the knowledge would not have caused him to alter his procedure in any way. For he was a perfectly brave man, whom no amount of prospective peril could turn aside from what he considered to be the path of duty. True, he was but an ordinary example of the New England whale-fisher; but it must ever be remembered that this wonderful calling—i.e., hunting the sperm whale—of necessity bred a most extraordinary type of man, having as it did the grand old Puritan stock to work upon.

So Mr. Court led his little flotilla into battle, every man watching with keenest anticipation the gently heaving masses of the mighty foes, and wondering much what so unusual an attitude portended. Some of the fellows felt a queer clutching sensation at the pit of the stomach as every bound of the buoyant craft brought them nearer those silent, listless-looking whales. But it was not fear; it was but the nerve-centres notifying the brain to call up all the energies of the body to face the unknown, and it would at the first crash of battle be replaced by a tautening of every muscle, an exaltation of spirit heady as that produced by wine, and a great, if dimly understood, sense of the power of man in the world.

A short, blast-like order, and Mr. Court, gripping his steer-oar fiercely, bent his body almost double and swung his boat’s head round at right angles to the leader of the great company. His harpooner, Gonsalvo, one thigh firmly pressed into the ‘clumsy cleat,’ raised the harpoon high overhead, and a hissing expiration burst from his clenched teeth as the weapon flew from his hand and buried itself up to the hitches in the whale’s broad side. One could see the convulsive quiver run through that vast body as the stab was felt; but Gonsalvo did not look; he snatched up his second iron and hurled it after the first to such good purpose that it buried itself like the first one—only about a foot higher up the body. Then, turning coolly round, the gratified assailant cast adrift the backstays of the mast and proceeded to roll up the sail as if quietly coming alongside a wharf. Meanwhile the boat had swung up into the wind and lay side by side with the whale, at a distance of about twenty feet. Hoarsely the mate encouraged his crew in their efforts to get the hampering mast unshipped, keeping at the same time a wary eye upon his prey. He was astonished beyond measure to see that the whale made no sign beyond that quivering of the skin before spoken of, but lay as if meditating upon this strange event. Then without further sign the whale sank, sank with hardly a ripple, and for a moment or two all was quiet, just giving Mr. Court an opportunity to glance around and see that his lieutenants were all busily engaged similarly to himself.

There was no lack of readiness or watchfulness; but suddenly a vast black mass appeared on the other side of the boat, and with a perfectly indescribable motion turned a somersault in the air, just missing, in the downward sweep of that awful tail, the frail boat by an inch or so. But the steer-oar was snapped off soundlessly, like a radish severed by the sweeping blow of a knife, leaving the boat helpless. Mr. Court’s orders flew; his men seconded him nobly, pulling first on this side, then on that, to turn the boat; but, bereft of that great oar aft, her movements were slow and hesitating. Then uprose that massive head, with jaws wide extended, which, taking the boat amidships, crashed through her as if she had been a stick of celery, destroying utterly two men and seriously injuring the mate. His right arm and leg were broken, and his whole side lacerated in appalling fashion.

In the suddenness of the shock the mate was mercifully spared the full realisation of his injuries; but the absence of pain only made his brain more active, and his mental agony was extreme. For not only had he been the victim of a complete defeat, but he did not know how matters were proceeding with his subordinates, and he feared the worst. Then as he paddled mechanically, conscious of a whelming drowsiness stealing over him, his left arm touched something hard—an empty line-tub. With one last flash of energy he rove his arm through its becket and passed immediately into blissful unconsciousness, that merciful suspension of the ‘suffering’ faculties that has been Divinely provided to smooth the way from life to death of shrinking, sensitive flesh. His poor fellows, those who were left, were fortunately uninjured, but thoroughly demoralised at the terrible shock they had received. They also were able to support themselves amid the whirling waters upon fragments of the broken boat; but, of course, like their officer, in a most precarious and tentative fashion.

And round about them, in leisurely fashion, as if contemplating the result of his strategical effort, swam the whale, neither doing nor attempting to do them any harm, but putting them in serious danger of drowning from the abnormal whirling of the water which the passage of his monstrous bulk effected. Occasionally, too, there would appear, cutting the water in erratic directions, the tall dorsal fin or ‘gaff topsail’ of a great shark, hunger-driven almost to madness by the taint of blood in the water, but (as yet) scrupulously respecting the bodily integrity of the hapless men still living. Overhead flitted restlessly a few birds, screaming mournfully, as if they realised that in the effort of providing a great banquet for them man had utterly failed this time. But of everything except the fast-weakening desire of living the principal actors in this stormy scene were utterly oblivious, and thus for a while we must leave them.

The other three boats, arriving upon the scene of conflict almost simultaneously, saw their leader get fast to the monarch of the school. And had they obeyed the regular rule, well known to them all, they would certainly have deputed the fourth boat to lie off and watch events, in case of need for assistance. But, freed from the baleful overglance of the skipper and fired to utmost emulation of each other as they were, it was easy to forget so necessary a precaution, and consequently, each singling out his whale, the three boats rushed to the attack, all harpooning about the same time. At once the scene became almost indescribable. For the stricken whales, unlike their leader, each fought with Titanic energy to free himself from the galling weapon, rearing monstrous heads high in the air at one moment, at the next flourishing with sufficient force to smash in a ship’s side their mighty tails, the supple corners of which actually snapped like whip-lashes from the vigour with which they were lashed to and fro. Also the loose whales, apparently with some indefinite object in view of rendering aid, glided about and between the combatants, making it impossible for the men to do what they tried and converting the sea into the semblance of the surface of a huge cauldron of water fiercely boiling.

Yet such was the skill and energy displayed by these hardly bestead hunters that for a considerable time they all escaped damage, although they often did so by a couple of inches only. At last, as they were weakening, the first calamity came, sudden and complete. The third mate’s boat was towed swiftly in a certain direction (and so furious had been the fight that the sail had not yet been secured) until the crew found themselves between two ominously revolving bodies, one that of the whale to which the fourth mate was fast, and the other their own quarry. There was no room wherein to use oars, nor was there time had there been place, when the two huge carcasses, rolling in opposite directions, crashed against the tender shell of the boat, which collapsed into matchwood, while the crew leapt madly upon the shiny, slippery bodies of the monsters, and, slithering downwards, disappeared in the smother of foam around.

With a groan of regret the fourth mate cut from his whale, and, regardless of his own immediate danger, incited his crew with all his powers to pick up their shipmates. And they did strive, literally for dear life. The huge bulk of the whales brushing past them, the frantic motions of their boat, apparently harassed them not at all. Intent upon the orders of the erect, keenly observant figure at the stern, they pulled, backed, peaked oars, or lay still as commanded, and while in the full tide of their tremendous labours were suddenly hoisted, as if by some submarine earthquake, upon the uprushing head of a whale ten feet into the air. They were flung in a writhing heap from their thwarts, and when they recovered themselves they were clinging sadly to a wreck, for the boat, although still holding together as to her frame, had her keel or backbone broken in three places, and, full of water, just sufficed to sustain their weary heads occasionally above the sea surface. Even at that dread time the minds of all were bent upon the fate of those whom they had failed to rescue. For themselves they cared nothing; they were comparatively safe with something floatable beneath their uncertain feet; but alas for those who in that tormented whirl of waves had not even a splinter unto which they might cling hopefully.

What of the second mate? Well, some might call him a coward, for although he had got fast like the rest, before three minutes had passed, having witnessed the disaster which had overtaken his senior officer, he had coolly cut his line and withdrawn with all the speed he could command from the arena. One thing, and one only, was in his mind, and that was how he could avoid being entangled in a fight, so that he might, as soon as opportunity offered, rush in and rescue some of the drowning ones. But, as he afterwards said, never in all his fishing had such a task fallen to his lot. For every whale in the school seemed to make for him, and although they did not attack, whales being magnanimous beyond all other powerful and sensible animals, they circled about him with majestic movement, occasionally scarifying the faces of himself and his patient men with the blistering drops from their condensed spoutings as they blew across his boat, and clearly made him understand that he existed only by their favour. And he was fretting his heart to fragments over his inactivity, and wondering how long it would be ere he could emerge from his august environment, and save those shipmates of his whom he knew to be perishing so near. Even then he had no notion of the completeness of the disaster. But his heart failed him as he thought of meeting the tyrant of his life, on that terrible man’s recovery, and endeavouring to explain away so great a failure.

Meanwhile as far as the eye could reach the boat was hemmed in by whales, that with majestic movement circled around their tiny captive, or, perpendicularly erected in the water, protruded their vast cylindrical heads from the surface like symmetrical columns of black rock. Then, as if at a given signal, the great assemblage divided, leaving between their closely packed ranks a lane of clear water. Not an instant was lost by Mr. Winslow; if his hand trembled, in its grip of the steer-oar, his voice did not; if his men looked wistfully at one another and at their gigantic escort, they pulled none the less lustily at the word of command. And presently they came upon a pitiful sight. In an area that might have been covered by a big ship’s mainsail floated listlessly six men, each clinging to some derelict portion of their late vessel’s equipment. None of them appeared able to appreciate their most perilous position; no gasp of fear passed their cracked and blistered lips when the long, quivering body of some ravening shark glided closely past them. No; for them nothing mattered any longer: they had passed beyond the reach of either hope or fear. And had one remembered how painful were their lives, how remote the possibilities of brightness ever lightening their dreary way through the world, the thought would inevitably have compelled admission that it was almost criminal to bring them back again to the suffering they had left behind—especially remembering how full of pain to them would be the process.

Such an idea, however, never occurred to those tender-hearted if ruffianly looking rescuers. Forgetting all their own danger—oblivious, indeed, to anything else but the manifestly urgent needs of the perishing ones they saw around them—they toiled furiously to get the exhausted men into their boat. Nor did they desist until, the gunwale of the boat being just awash, they were warned that any further attempts to pick up men would certainly mean the loss of all, both rescuers and rescued. Six were still a-missing, but that could not be helped, and with the utmost care they moved heavily off towards the ship, which was standing down the wind in their direction. A careful shipkeeper of a whaleship always devotes all his energies, as soon as boats have left, to keeping his vessel to windward of the scene of conflict—a position of advantage whence, when the great fight is over, he may run down with a free sheet and pick up the boats and their gigantic prizes.

So that, although the time seemed interminably long, it was really only a matter of minutes before the boat was alongside the ship and the broken men were being hauled on board. All the time this work was going on the ship was the centre of a vast assemblage of whales, seemingly satisfied that their enemies were now powerless to harm them, and, although majestically refusing to attack a helpless foe, quite determined to let that foe see unmistakably what might be his fate should his late prospective victims become aggressive. No sooner were the rescued men on board than Mr. Winslow, as if he and his crew were machines of iron rather than men of weariable muscles, pushed off from the ship’s side and carefully steering between the bulky bodies of the assembled whales, made the best of their way back to where they hoped to find the remainder of their shipmates. Six were still missing, among them the mate, who since the captain’s accident had endeared himself to all hands. But it really seemed as if their colossal escort knew the errand they were upon, for their progress was hindered in the most extraordinary manner by the whales crowding about them. No assault was made; had it been, however slight, they must all have perished; but it was as if they were incessantly reminded by the whales that forbearance had, even with such magnanimous monsters, its limits, and that while no advantage would be taken of primary helplessness, they (the whalers) would not lightly be permitted to help those who were receiving the due reward of their own aggression.

So, with infinite pains, the second mate and his hardly entreated boat’s crew made their way back to the scene of conflict, and found one man, the mate, still afloat, and possibly alive. They could not be sure of the latter, but took him in on the chance. Further search, although prolonged to the utmost limit of their endurance, failed to show them any more of their lost shipmates, and at last in a faint voice Mr. Winslow ordered them to give way for the ship. As his men doggedly obeyed, and called up their final reserve of energy, the attendant whales, as if satisfied with the progress of the day’s events, drew off, and with their great leader well ahead, took their departure to windward along the bright glorious path of the setting sun, whose rays touched their mighty bodies with gold and made every little spray they threw upwards in their stately progress glisten like a shower of diamonds.

The overburdened crew reached the ship without further incident, and, once alongside, realised how terrible had been the strain imposed. For even the simple business of hoisting the boat, usually a matter of at most two minutes, became a herculean task hardly to be accomplished by the united efforts of all hands remaining capable of standing on their feet. Once secured on her cranes, Mr. Winslow dismissed his boat from his mind and wearily slouched to where the mate lay on a mattress brought up by one of the harpooners. So great was his loss of vigour, that although he saw the mate had recovered consciousness and was now peacefully asleep in his drying clothes, he felt a dull want of interest in that fact, as in everything else, and without taking further interest of his surroundings or of the claims of his position, he cast himself down in the little clear space abaft the wheel on the starboard side, pillowed his head upon his right arm, and immediately fell asleep.

The shipkeepers—that is, the four petty officers, carpenter, cooper, steward, and cook, with the four men appointed to assist them in the duty of managing the ship during the process of catching whales—had been hardly pressed both by work and anxiety. But they saw and realised how easy had been their lot as compared with that of the hunters; and although they had well earned a relief, they said nothing, but went grimly on with their by no means easy task of preparing the vessel for the night, clearing away gear, &c.

Now during this terrible day Priscilla had found great peace. We left her at its beginning comforted as only those heavy-laden ones can be comforted who are in direct communication with the Comforter. Permeated by that Peace which passeth all understanding, she felt content to abide in quiet security any event that might happen, and she looked down upon the insensible form by her side with something of the Divine compassion, although without one spark of the human love which should exist between husband and wife. All that her simple ideas of nursing could suggest as good to be done for him she did assiduously, while his face twitched convulsively, unintelligible muttering flowed ceaselessly from his lips, and every muscle of his body seemed as if under the influence of a powerful galvanic battery.

It was very quiet down in the small cabin. The workers on deck went about their duties softly in dread of rousing the skipper, and only a faint echo of an occasional carefully modulated cry from aloft came stealing softly to her ears. She did not feel hunger, weariness, or anxiety. Whenever the good darkey steward could spare a few minutes from the work of the ship he stole down to see if he could do anything for her; but beyond accepting a cup of tea and a biscuit at midday, she gently declined all his kindly offers. The only feeling, as she said afterwards, that did occasionally shoot athwart the placid state of her mind was one of thankfulness that her husband was so long oblivious of all that must, she knew, be going on, for she could not help realising what his fury would be if, with all his senses about him, he should be unable to take part in the hunting.

And so quietly the long day wore to its close. She remained in utter ignorance of the outcome until, at about 7 P.M., the steward crept to her side with a cup of soup, and begged her to sup it. While she languidly did so, he sketched for her in a few hurried whispers the condition of things, and wound up by saying, his swart face looking a ghastly green in the dim light of the swinging lamp: ‘An’ de good Lawd Hisself only knows wa’s gwine happen t’ us wen he comes to an’ fine’s eout abaout it. Lawd hab massy on us all den.’ She answered him not a word, but, handing back the cup, laid her tired head back in her chair and passed peacefully to sleep.

CHAPTER IX

REUBEN EDDY, MARINER

We left Rube not only entered conclusively upon his new career, the very antithesis of all his previous experiences, but, by one of those mysterious happenings which prove how little we know of the workings of the human brain, completely dissociated from that former life of his as if it had never been. And yet by some merciful connection, inexplicable in view of his entire loss of memory, but certainly bridging the dark gulf, his former Christian training not merely influenced him, but its effect was intensely deepened and strengthened. So with all his old attributes of patience, of kindliness, of love; attributes which all must confess may exist without any acknowledgment on the part of their possessor of the power of Christianity at all. Also his physical powers developed amazingly. Seemingly quite careless what he ate, but always with bared head returning thanks to God for it, he throve upon that poor food until his torso would have served as a model for an ancient Greek statue of Hercules. Upon his bright face the shadow of a frown was never seen, his serenity of mind seemed proof against all the pettiness of aggravation that men allow to do so much harm in the world, the gnat-bites of daily intercourse which fester into various plagues far more deadly in their continual evil than all the great crimes which shock us so by the horrors of their incidence upon the life of man.

And with all this he was essentially a man, taking with highest intelligence his daily part in all around him, excelling in ability as he did in strength every one of his shipmates until he came to be looked upon by them as a kind of demi-god whose superiority in all things they ungrudgingly acknowledged because he himself was obviously entirely unconscious of it. Forward and aft it was the same. If any felt they had aught to teach him they immediately did so for the sheer joy of the thing; he was so eager to learn, so keen-witted in absorbing new knowledge, so humble and entirely grateful. At first this attitude of his was looked upon with suspicion by his shipmates, for suspicion and jealousy are baleful plants that thrive apace on shipboard among the crew, especially on long voyages; then, when the impossibility of being suspicious or jealous of such a man had been fully demonstrated, good-natured, bantering toleration took its place. This was succeeded by reverence, which gradually overcame the most sceptical, those who longest maintained that ‘Rube wuz jest a easy-goin’ loony ’at y’ c’d do anythin’ y’ liked with.’ This latter phase of feeling towards him arose, I think, as far as the foc’s’le was concerned, in consequence of the stand he took against rows in their common abiding place. Whenever men quarrelled (and shore-folk can hardly imagine how difficult it is to keep the peace in a small apartment tenanted by thirty men), Rube was at once on hand, unless it happened to be his wheel or masthead look-out. And, owing to his great size and strength and utter disregard of himself, it was impossible to bring off a fight when he was about. For he would propose the most absurd things, such as that the two belligerents, if they felt they must beat somebody, should beat him in turn; but beat one another they should not while he was able to prevent them, and they could not doubt his ability to do that. Once an infuriated man did strike him a heavy blow full in the mouth. It was like striking a rock. Rube leaped at the striker, caught his fist, and, holding it up, said, ‘Poor feller, jes’ look at them knuckles, they’re all cut about shameful. Less get a bit er rag an’ tie ’em up.’

What could they do with a man like that but love him? Nothing. And surely never was man so loved aboard ship before. When in the long evenings after the first dog-watch the crew lolled about the fore part of the deck smoking, it became quite an institution for Rube to sit (he didn’t smoke) and tell them stories in his own quaint language out of the Bible from memory. He possessed the only one on board, and read it continually in his watch below, giving up to its delights much of the time his great frame needed for sleep. Perhaps the quotation of a sample of his Bible yarns (as the fellows termed them) may be admitted.

‘Way back in the old days, boys, it seems t’ me thet most people hed a mighty rough time of it. In th’ cities, frum what I c’n see, they wuz pow’ful little ’musement fur the wealthy folks ’cept buildin’ uncomfortable palaces, stuffin’ grub down their necks they didn’t feel to want, gettin’ drunk, an’ seein’ a lot of poor people suffer. Funny how a man or woman should like to see sufferin’, ain’t it? Even then when these rich folks was havin’ what they persuaded themselves wuz a hot ole time, they wuz always expectin’ some feller’d come along an’ make a big hole in ’em with one o’ them old-fashioned stickers you see in pictures, about a foot long, four inches wide, and razzur sharp on both edges. But they was a lot o’ people hadn’t got no palaces. They was something like sailors ashore—always on th’ move, carryin’ their grub with ’em, an’ only stoppin’ any length o’ time where there was water an’ plenty grass fur th’ live stock. ’Course they managed t’ steal a lot of poor fellers ’at didn’t know enough t’ keep out er the way, and make these slaves do all the work. We’re most of us built like that. Comfort was a word that hadn’t come into use those days; but then neither had indigestion, nerves, corns, or rheumatics. Well, among these people was one a good deal better’n most ov ’em, though, of course, he had his faults, an’ his name was Isaac. Only that. Jest a given name, an’ no more: easy to remember. Now this good man was well off as those days went. He had lots o’ sheep ’n’ goats an’ donkeys an’ camels, an’ a mighty big country to travel about in, an’ let ’em feed wherever they would, with no rent or taxes to pay. He had a wife he was very fond of—only one, which was sing’lar for those times, when th’ best o’ men didn’t seem able to get along without a bunch o’ wives. An’ he had two sons. One of these sons was a fine fellow, free an’ open an’ brave, fond of all manly sports, but one of those chaps such as we say’ll never get on in th’ world. He was his father’s darlin’. The other was a quiet, say-nothin’-t’-nobody sort o’ feller, fond of hangin’ around the tents and looking after the breedin’ o’ the cattle an’ sheep, an’ he was what we call a good business man. But you had to watch him close, or he’d get t’ wind’ard of ye every time. His name was a sort o’ warning to anybody t’ keep their weather eye liftin’ when he was havin’ truck with ’em. It was Jacob, meanin’ a feller that gets into another feller’s place after he’s jockeyed him out of it. An’ he wasn’t partikler who it was he bested, his father or his brother jes’ as soon as anybody else. He was his mother’s favourite.

‘Well, after both boys had grown up, an’ Jacob had ben workin’ off his little schemes pretty frequent, ’specially on his twin brother Esau, his dotin’ mother puts him up to a dodge to take in the old man, who was gettin’ pretty shaky, so’s he’d scratch Esau outer his will, and put Jacob in. And between ’em they rigged up Jacob in goatskins to make him feel like Esau, who was one of those big, burly, hairy men, so as his poor old father, who was blind, shouldn’t know the difference, an’ give him all the property as well as his blessin’, which counted in them days fur even more than property. And th’ scheme worked all right. But when Esau come home from the country, and found it out, Jacob had to quit, or else Esau would have killed him sure. So his mother lost him altogether. I don’t s’pose that bothered him greatly. Anyhow, he did just as well in the new country he run to, and in just the same way. An’ he kem back a good many years after with quite a procession of wives an’ children an’ no end of property, an’ who should meet him but Esau, without any wives an’ children or property, but an army, which was almost the best thing to have in those days, ’cause when you’d got it you could get the other things whenever you wanted ’em by taking ’em away from somebody else.

‘And Jacob, bein’ scared ’most to death, offers to buy Esau off from what he s’posed was goin’ to be his revenge, with a whole heap of his property. But Esau says, “Thanks, old man, I don’t want to take away what belongs to you; I’ve got all I want. But I’ll send a bit of my army along with you to see that nobody else comes and robs ye.” But Jacob says to himself, “Oh, no, this is just a scheme for taking all I’ve got away bymeby.” So he refused. An’ they parted, an’ never saw one another again.’

Loud cries of ‘Bully for Esau!’ and opprobrious remarks about Jacob, changing into utter bewilderment when next evening Jacob’s subsequent history was told in the same quaintly familiar fashion, and the justification of his being chosen by God was pointed out. For not only did Rube tell Bible stories, but in the most artless manner he based conversation upon them; never arguing, but gently suggesting; familiarising his hearers with Scripture in the most pleasing way, and never attempting to compel belief by his efforts. It is no exaggeration to say that in spite of the disappointment felt by the men at the long period of unsuccessful searching, Rube’s sweet influence was felt by all hands. And although many of them still had their occasional doubts of his sanity, none doubted the perfect goodness and beauty of his character.

They became a very smart crew. Every duty they were called upon to perform they did as if they loved it, and the skipper’s rugged face glowed with eagerness to see how they would behave on whales if and when the chance came. But it was not until they were midway between the Line and Cape Horn that they sighted their first sperm whale. He was a lone whale of enormous size, and evidently making a passage to some other feeding-ground, since he kept his course as if steering by compass, spouting with the utmost regularity a given number of times, descending and rising again as if timed by a chronometer. Cautiously, but with all the attention possible, the ship was worked to windward of him, until, in a suppressed shout, Captain Hampden gave the order, ‘’Way boats!’ It had previously been decided that only two boats were needed for the job, so the first and second mates’ boats started, dropped alongside lightly as foam flakes, and with a long, swinging stroke they pulled away to windward. Rube was in the mate’s boat pulling midship oar—the heaviest of the five—and the mate simply gasped with astonishment to see how this recent yokel handled his eighteen-foot oar, how all his powers were given to its manipulation, and what a beautiful stroke he had. They pulled for half an hour, then with sails set to the strong breeze that was blowing, bore down upon the unconscious whale, the other boat following hard after them at a cable’s distance. Nearer, nearer they drew, all hands holding their breath. Now a wide sheer to port because of that little eye’s power of seeing astern. They gain rapidly; they are abeam. A strong sweep of the steer oar, the main sheet is slacked off, and the boat sweeps round and leaps at the whale’s broadside like a living thing. Before she strikes, the harpooner has hurled his iron, and it sinks its length into the black side; the whale is fast. Haul aft the sheet, flat as possible, the boat flies up into the wind, the harpooner casting out the stray line meanwhile, and there, although tossing tremendously because of the fuss being made by the indignant whale, they get the hampering sail rolled up and mast unshipped and fleeted aft out of the way.

Before they have finished their task the second mate is alongside awaiting orders. He is told not to go near, but wait and see what the whale is going to do, always an uncertain factor in scenes like this. The whale is going to behave in orthodox fashion—i.e., descend to where beyond these voices there is peace. Downward he goes deliberately, as if hurry were never less needed, but apparently taking no heed of the strain kept on the line by the buoyant boat above. Presently it becomes evident that he is a stayer, for the second line-tub is nearly empty, and he shows no signs of slackening in his downward path. So the second mate is called upon to pass the end of his line aboard, and it is spliced on at once. (The strands are always kept plaited up, so that a splice may be made almost as rapidly as a knot, and much neater and more safe.) Still he goes down, down, down; while faces gather blackness as fake after fake of line disappears. Will he never weaken? The heavy drogue (equal in retarding strain to four boats) has been bent on at the splice, but seems to have no effect upon him. The mate’s heart sinks. Up goes the urgent wheft, a signal to the ship that more line is needed immediately; but, alas! it is too late. There is a short interval of almost agonising suspense, and the end of the line flips over the bows. He is gone!

Then the mate gives vent to his feelings. His cursings comprehensively embrace everything he can bring to memory, himself chiefly. When he is exhausted Rube’s lips are seen to be moving, and the mate, fiercely desirous of some animate object whereupon to vent his rage, yells, ‘You hayseed, what you mumblin’ about?’ (I suppress even the blank profanity with which every word or two is loaded.) Rube softly replies, ‘I was so sorry for your disappointment and the skipper’s that I was just askin’ God that all our labour shouldn’t be lost.’

The mate was dumb—what could he say to this? And every man in the boat looked at Rube as if he were uncanny—they had no more idea than most professing Christians have of the simple faith that believes in an immanent God always ready and willing to hear the requests of His children. And up into the midst of their wonderment rose the whale, the long line trailing behind him, evidently exhausted by his tremendous efforts to reach a depth of safety. A dozen strokes in reply to the swiftly shouted orders of the mate, and they were alongside of him, the harpooner had hooked up the line and passed it into the boat, and the mate had thrust his long lance so fiercely in between the third and fourth ribs of the leviathan that the whole vast body quivered from snout to flukes with the pangs of approaching death. Secure in the knowledge that he had dealt a deathblow, the mate shouted to the harpooner to cut the loose line adrift; but even that small loss was avoided, for the second mate’s boat sheered alongside in the nick of time and took it.

No other stroke was needed; a thin stream of blood was seen to be trickling over the edge of the spiracle, and the next great expiration hurled into the air, with a bursting groan, masses of clotted blood so large that it was almost miraculous how they had been forced along the single air-tube which supplies the lungs with breath. Filled with a great awe, the new hands drew off slowly in obedience to the orders given, unable to take their eyes off the dying giant. And then, to their horror, they saw him suddenly rear his gigantic head high in air, and hurl his body along the blood-stained sea-surface in hundred-foot leaps, swaying first to this side and then to that as if under the influence of an agony so intolerable that he was endowed with at least ten times his usual great strength. All around his awful way the sea was torn into a thousand fantastic shapes, and blocks of purple foam were flung on high and caught by the wind, which drove them like some dreadful snow in showers of flakes far to leeward. At last—and although the paroxysm had only lasted about three minutes, they seemed like hours—there was a momentary lull: the whale disappeared. But almost immediately after there was an upheaval like the rearing of a suddenly formed volcano in the midst of the sea, and high into the air soared the whole mighty mass, apparently hung suspended there for an appreciable space, and fell! In the thundering noise and violent commotion occasioned by that great act, the hunters lost for a moment their strained attention on the whale. When they regained it he lay an inert mass, gently undulating to the touch of the waves, with his head as usual pointed straight towards the wind’s eye.

HIGH INTO THE AIR SOARED THE WHOLE MIGHTY MASS.

There was a great peace succeeding the tumult, and a moaning little voice in the wind which filled the air with mournfulness. Also the plash of the wavelets over the quiet bank of flesh had in it, to all seeming, a murmur of regret. The influences of that restful time affected all for a brief space, and Rube’s eyes glistened as he thought of the cruel end so suddenly befalling the brave, strong, harmless monster, a short hour ago so placidly enjoying his life, and perfectly filling his appointed place in the scheme of things. But with a jerk all musings were ended, for the mate’s voice broke harshly upon the accented silence, as he shouted, ‘Naow, then, m’ lads, pull two, starn three, an’ le’s git th’ tow line fast, ’relse the ship’ll be here ’fore we’re half ready.’ She was coming straight for them before the wind, and only about a mile away—a homely, clumsy-looking craft enough, but invested for each of the green hands with a new character now, a home of rest after their late heavy toil, a place where they would be met with a great satisfaction as returning conquerors bringing their gigantic spoil with them, warriors who had abundantly justified the training they had received. They had been able in that one fleeting hour of tremendous experiences to attain unto the highest physical pleasure of which man is capable—the sense that, by the use of his puny powers, rightly directed, he is able to overcome what seems to be at first sight the most overwhelming odds brought against him. All the solemnity of the first moments of victory was forgotten, and even Rube’s eyes sparkled with delight as he watched the look of content glowing on the mate’s face, as with his short boat spade he hacked at the great limber tail until he had cut a hole in it through which the tow-line could be passed.

The ship rounded to as easily as one of the boats would have done, only about her own length from the whale. And the mate with a triumphant roar of ‘Give way, m’lads!’ steered for her, no man prouder than he of the way in which his ‘greenies’ had acquitted themselves on their maiden venture. The grizzled leonine head of the skipper loomed in the waist, where, the boards out, all was in readiness to receive them. And as ready hands hooked up the tow-line, and prepared to walk up alongside the huge mass of their prize, he said to the mate standing beneath him erect in the stern of the boat: ‘Wall, Mr. Pease, yew du seem t’ hev got on t’ a logy this time. I sh’d say he’s all ov a hundred an’ forty bar’l be his look, ’less he’s dry-skin.’ ‘Nary dry-skin ’baout him, Cap’n Hampden,’ replied the mate, cheerfully. ‘He’s jest a-teemin’ outer him. Iron went in’s if it hed fell into a kag er butter. Fattes’ whale ever I struck, ’n’ thet’s the cole truth, sir.’

Then with a joyful noise all hands tallied on to the tow-line, and snaked that whale alongside in great shape. Everything had been prepared for the arrival, cutting falls rove, spades ranged, cutting stage ready, and although the experience was absolutely novel to most of the men, they were so keen, so eager to do as they were told to the best of their ability, that really I doubt whether the most seasoned crew could have made a better show than they did. And this in spite of the almost feverish desire possessed by all to look upon the gigantic prize they had won in fair fight from his appointed realm, the vasty deep. It was all so wonderful, so new, so strange. And then in hurried glimpses they saw coming up in the clear blue around hosts of queer-looking creatures (to them, for none of the new hands had ever seen a shark before). One fellow, a lank Kentuckian, in a stolen moment remarked in a stage whisper to a shipmate, as they leaned over the rail hauling at the fluke-chain, ‘Gosh! look’t all them little fish daown thar.’ Said little fish, rising rapidly, presently revealed themselves as sharks averaging ten feet in length, who, regardless of consequences, hurled themselves end-ways at the whale’s body, and gouged at it furiously, as if driven mad by hunger.

The whale fairly secured alongside, the skipper’s voice rose above the tumult, commanding instant attention from everybody. ‘Mr. Pease, let th’ boys go to dinner. I guess we won’t miss an hour, and th’ weather looks sorter settled.’ ‘Dinner!’ shouted the mate, and there was a stampede forward, for every man, as soon as he had time to think of it, was ravenously hungry. The cook had, under orders from the skipper, made a few additions to the usual dietary, and it is not too much to say that every man there when he sat down to enjoy his well-earned meal was, for the time being, as happy as ever he had been in his life. And only because the man who controlled their destinies for the time had in addition to his fund of common-sense, a little of the milk of human kindness.

A little judicious appreciation costs nothing, and is so valuable: it often lifts weary men over the dead centres of life; indeed, it often makes a youth who, full of fear lest in his very anxiety to do well he has made some irreparable mistake, feel that no effort can be too great to please a man who has recognised his desire to do his duty. And when, at the call of ‘Turn to!’ the rested, well-fed crowd climbed on deck again into the keen, pure air, and found that while they had been dining the skipper and his officers had been toiling at the stupendous task of cutting off the whale’s head, they almost felt ashamed at having taken so long over their meal.

I know very well that there will be many a cynical sneer at this, but that does not matter at all so long as the thing is true. If men (and I care not whether they be white, black, brown, or yellow) are treated like cattle they will yield worse than bovine service; if they are pampered and allowed to feel that they can do as they like, they will, their natural depravity getting the upper hand, become practically worthless; but if, as under Captain Hampden, they are kept under discipline, yet made to feel that their efforts to do well are fully appreciated, they will behave as men should behave who realise to the full the dignity of obeying the call of duty, who realise abundantly how good it is to be a man.

CHAPTER X

THE GOOD SHIP ‘XIPHIAS’

Of definite purpose I have italicised the adjective in the heading of this chapter because I have often feared that readers of ‘The Cruise of the Cachalot’ may have been led to believe that there could not be such a thing as a good whaleship. And yet even there I did try to show how vast a difference a change of captains made. The Xiphias, however, was good from the beginning. A certain amount of unavoidable suffering was endured by the new hands at the beginning of the cruise, consequent entirely upon the sudden violent change in their lives. And perhaps the officers were just a trifle exuberant in their attentions to the helpless, clumsy men they were endeavouring to lick into shape. But there never was any actual cruelty. Discipline once firmly established, and rudimentary ideas of the work they must do instilled into the men’s minds, their lives became as comfortable as a sailor’s life can ever be at sea. They worked hard, but only at necessary duties, and they were never wantonly deprived of needed rest. Their food was none too good, but it was certainly better than usual and always plentiful. Even here the genial spirit of the skipper was able to exercise itself beneficially for the comfort of his men. He and his officers were always on the keenest look-out for fish of any sort, and no effort was spared to catch them, all sorts of fishing tackle being carried for the purpose. He knew, too, many little dodges by means of which sea-fowl could be rendered palatable, and was a past master in the art of devising changes of dietary for his crew.

But more than all this, the man himself was one of those glorious old Yankees who combine with a supreme ability to command their fellows—a power of enforcing discipline among the roughest with splendid, never-failing courage—the simple, fun-loving, joyous instincts of a child: terrible in their just anger to meet as a tiger in the jungle, but happy and light-hearted as any child when their men behave like men. So that Captain Hampden was not merely obeyed, he was loved both by officers and men, and all the more because not one of them would have dared to impose upon him in any way. I speak feelingly, for I know the man, who now, midway between eighty and ninety years of age, is not in his second childhood, but his first, his broad back unbent, his hawk-like eye undimmed, his huge limbs as steady as they were half a century ago. To him the children flock as to one who understands them. They talk to him as to one of themselves, and parents laughingly upbraid him with being foremost among the mischief-loving urchins of the sweet little New England town in which he lives. And I am sure that when the call comes for him to close his long and useful schooling here, he will lie down to sleep with the perfect confidence of a little child. It would be an impertinence to say ‘God bless him,’ for God has blessed him exceedingly abundantly, and made him also a blessing to many thousands who are the happier for his having lived.

But I must get back apologetically to the Xiphias, with her crew girding their loins to the great task in front of them. The cutting-in of the first whale of a voyage is always a serious matter, since the crew, however willing, must needs be educated in the performance of an entirely novel task. I am anxious not to repeat myself, but the work of collecting the spoil from a dead whale is of so wonderful a character—is, in spite of the greasy nature of the surroundings, so truly romantic—that the temptation to dwell upon its description is ever present. To the casual unthinking observer there may seem nothing very wonderful in the operation of cutting-in, except the astounding magnitude of the masses raised from the body and disposed of in the blubber-room and on deck. But really it is a piece of work requiring not merely the utmost skill and care on the part of its directors, but a certain natural aptitude as well, for want of this latter characteristic always entails an enormous amount of extra labour upon the crew. Take, for instance, the preliminary operation of cutting off the huge head. Even with the utmost skill this task demands an amazing amount of muscular force, but if that be wrongly applied it is indeed a heart-breaking job. There is practically nothing to guide the eye in the selection of a line upon which to start cutting down into the body and finding the junction of the neck. And there is in a whale of the size captured by the Xiphias fully six feet of muscular tissue to be severed by the spades before the central bone is reached. In other words, the diameter of the body there is about fourteen feet. A few inches to one side or the other, and the work may take double the number of hours it should do, while the able whaleman will plunge unerringly down through the mass blow after blow of his razor-edged spade until he feels—he cannot see—his blade strike the exact spot in the centre of the joint, a ball-and-socket about fourteen inches in diameter.

So well had Captain Hampden and his officers performed their task that when the crew rushed on deck eager for work the joint had been severed, a hole had been bored through the snout, and the end of a snout-chain was already passed through this hole and dangling down under water, awaiting the turning over of the carcass to be got hold of. This was for the purpose of dropping the head astern when it was cut off, for it is always the last to be dealt with.

Swiftly the chain-sling was passed round the base of the lower jaw, hooked to one of the big tackles, with a cheery shout the windlass levers were manned, and presently, upward pointing, arose the shaft of bone, studded with foot-long teeth, while the officers cut vigorously away at the throat, and started the unwinding of that thick overcoating of rich fat their prize had worn so long. And all the while the busy spades of the skipper and mate went plunging almost with the regularity of a pair of pistons down into the scarph dividing the head from the body, until as the first blanket piece rose alongside the head slipped easily aft and floated, an almost cylindrical mass of some thirty-five tons in weight, at the end of a hawser passed over the taffrail.

All plain sailing now for a time. Merrily clattered the pawls, accentuated by the occasional cries of ‘Heave on yer whale!’ ‘Surge on yer piece!’ ‘’Vast heaving!’ ‘Lower away!’ ‘Walk back!’ and the like, all so definite in their application with seamen, and so utterly unintelligible ashore. So briskly, indeed, did the work go on that in less than an hour from the time that the first blanket piece was lowered into the blubber-room, all hands were gratified to see the great flukes dangling at the end of a tackle, the last joint of the backbone having been cut through and the mountainous mass of black flesh allowed to drift slowly away, torn at by innumerable sharks on all sides, and the centre of a perfect cloud of screaming sea-birds.

Now for the head. Smart as the work had been, there was no time to be lost. Although the whale had been struck at 8 A.M., it was now nearly 3 P.M. Barely three hours of daylight remained; and, besides, on the south-eastern horizon there was rising a mass of cloud, with outlines as sharp and clearly defined as those of a mountain. It loomed ever higher, vast, menacing, and deepening into blackness. But although the skipper could not help casting an anxious glance to windward occasionally, his manner was cheery as ever, and he and his officers toiled as if fatigue was to them a word without meaning. Certainly, whatever other virtues be denied them, the Yankee whaling officers could never be accused of laziness. If they worked their men almost to death they never spared themselves: they always led the way, and showed by their example what a man could do if he tried.

The task of dividing the ‘case’ and ‘junk’ from the head, which was now taken in hand, is the heaviest of all, not excepting cutting off the head. For the case is a huge oblong tank, full of pure spermaceti, and extending almost the whole length of the head, of which, indeed, it forms nearly half the bulk. It must be cut out, for in a whale of this size it contains nearly three tons of spermaceti as fluid as oil, and there is no way of getting at this precious substance without lifting the whole case. Lifting the head entirely is sometimes effected, but only when the whale is small. In so large a one as this the lifting of the case alone when detached is a task demanding the utmost energy of all hands, and often, when a heavy sea is running, straining the ship dangerously. Even then it cannot be taken on board, but must be suspended alongside, and the spermaceti baled out of it with a bucket in a most cumbrous and unsatisfactory way. The junk, being one solid mass cut off the point of the snout, and weighing about four or five tons, is easier dealt with, since a slip of the spade in cutting it off does not mean a possible leakage of all its valuable contents, for in it the spermaceti is contained in cells as water is held in a sponge, and is, moreover, almost congealed.

By dint of the most strenuous toil, the junk and case were separated, and the former hove on deck and secured, half an hour before dark. Then the mighty case was hooked on and held up alongside. As the ship was beginning to roll uneasily in the new cross swell coming up from the south-east, precursor of the impending storm, it was necessary to pass a heavy chain around it to bind it in to the side. Then a light spar was rigged across the two tackles, high above the case, and a single whip or pulley, with a rope running through it, to one end of which was attached a long bucket. Then a man—he happened to be a merry little Irish teamster, named MacManus—mounted nimbly aloft, and sat upon the spar grasping a spade pole, with which to push the bucket down into the case after he had slit open the top of it. Then, at his word, the waiting men on deck hauled the bucket out and lowered it to the tank awaiting its contents on deck.

Meanwhile all on deck were as busy as ants. Inspired by the skipper, they toiled to get the decks clear, and certain of them, at the word, rushed aloft to furl the few remaining sails that were set, except the close-reefed main topsail. Rube, being on the leeside, did not trouble to cross the deck and go up in orthodox fashion, but as he climbed somewhat wearily he saw MacManus take a header from his precarious seat into the yawning cavity of the case. A scream of horror burst from his lips, but overcoming the paralysis that momentarily affected his bodily powers, he leaped like a cat from the main shrouds to the cutting falls, and, grabbing the bucket in one hand, slid down into the yawning chasm beneath. As he went he felt the slimy walls of the great case embracing him all round, and thought with agony of the depth beneath him—fourteen feet at least of oil—then soundlessly the bland greasiness closed over his head, and all was darkness. But his mind was clear, and his hope was high that those who saw him go would spring to the whip and haul up ere it was too late. And while he thus thought he groped with one arm through the bucket loop, and, feeling something hard, seized it with a drowning man’s grip just as he felt himself ascending. Reluctantly those sucking walls yielded up their prey; his arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets; but although there was a roaring as of loudest thunder in his ears, he held on. And presently he hung limply in mid-air, one arm still through the bucket loop, the other around the body of MacManus. Four eager and willing men slid down the falls and seized the pair. Securing them with ropes passed to them from the main-top, they lowered them as rapidly as possible on deck. Even then there was no time to be lost, for both were apparently dead—ears, nostrils, and mouths being clogged with the rapidly coagulating spermaceti. But after the application of some highly original methods of clearing it away, and most patient artificial respiration following it, the pair gradually returned from their visit to the shades, and sat up wonderingly.

It was not for several hours that either of them could recall what had befallen them, and when they did both fell a-trembling violently as they again realised the sensation of sliding down into that darksome well of grease. But Rube recovered first, having, as he said, the need laid upon him to offer up thanks to God for permitting him to save his shipmate’s life. He remembered how, as he slid out of the fast-fading daylight, his heart said, ‘O God, make me save him,’ and he felt that by nothing short of a miracle he had been able to do so. Poor MacManus could not speak of it, so broken up was he, but for hours, emitting every now and then a rending sob, he lay holding Rube’s hand in his as if only by so doing could he be prevented from gliding back again into that pit of death.

This accident had, of course, caused much delay, but still, through the now almost pitchy blackness of the night, by the aid of cressets of blazing fuel suspended from the boat-davits, the work had gone on, until at four bells (10 P.M.) a few strokes of a spade released the ponderous mass from its slings, and with a sullen, thunderous boom it fell back into the sea. Immediately upon its disappearance the skipper ordered half the crew below for a couple of hours’ rest, and himself hastened to visit the victims of the late mishap. He found MacManus asleep, nervously twitching all over, but Rube lying with hands folded on his breast, his lips moving slowly as he murmured praises for his deliverance.

‘Well, Rube, ’n’ haow d’ye seem t’ be hittin’ it b’ now, hey?’ said the old man cheerily.

Rube turned on him a dazzling smile, and answered in a quiet tone: ‘Jes ’s grand ’s grand kin be, Cap’n. I don’t know as I was ever so happy in all m’ life. Only one thing I’m sorry fur, ’at I kain’t be up ’n’ doin’ my share o’ th’ work thet’s goin’ on. But as yew’re all so kind, I don’t feel able t’ worry nearly ’s much ’bout thet ’s I feel I oughter.’

‘Jes’ yew stop right thar,’ said the skipper. ‘Don’t wanter hyar ‘et yew’re worryin’ any ‘t all. Why, blame my cats, I want ye well, ’n’ haow in thunder air ye goin’ t’ git well ef you lays thar a-worryin’? Guess me an’ th’ rest ov yew’re shipmates ’ll dew all th’ worryin’ thet’s called fur till yew’re round again. We kain’t git ’long ’thout yew a bit, ’n’ thet’s a fact.’

‘Ah, Cap’n,’ murmured Rube, ‘it does sound good ov ye to say so, and say it so kinder tender like. Fact is, yew’re all of ye so kind ’at I’m’s happy as a man k’n be. Nothin’ don’t seem able t’ hurt me. Naow and then thar’s a set o’ blurred pictures comes up in my mind of a long time ago, when I was very unhappy an’ looked ahead to see nawthin’ but trouble an’ misery waitin’ fur me all my days. But it never gits quite clear. I never remember anything fur certain, and I don’t seem ter—I kain’t seem ter—feel ’at I keer a row o’ pins what’s goin’ t’ happen ter-morrer. I seem ter ben here all my life, ’n’ don’t want a little bit t’ be anywhere else. I ain’t gut a care ner a fret ner a want in the world.’ Then, as the Captain turned as if about to leave abruptly—for the need upon him to do so was great—Rube gently laid a detaining hand upon his arm, saying: ‘Cap’n, I believe it’s all the goodness of God. Some of us don’t think as much of Him as we might. I know I don’t, but I b’lieve ther’ ain’t one of us but what thinks more about God’s love to ’em than they do ’bout anythin’ else in this world.’ ‘Stop,’ almost shouted the skipper, ‘yew’re hurtin’ me wuss ’n ye know. I dassent say a word ’at w’d hurt yer faith in us, but fur God’s sake don’t make us out like that. I kain’t tell ye haow mean an’ low down an’ ord’nary yew make me feel when yew talk like that. Naow I must git, fur yew’re mighty low, ’n’ I got work wants doin’. Try an’ git t’ sleep an’ be about among us as quickly as ever yew can.’ And the skipper hurriedly departed.

In truth he was glad to get away from what was rapidly becoming an intolerable situation. Back to his mind had been brought with startling clearness the old Quaker home, the sweet placid face of his mother, as with a cooing gentleness she taught him to utter his earliest prayers to the All-Father with whom she was on such beautifully intimate terms. He remembered how the light upon his mother’s face always seemed to him to be reflected from the sky, and how he used to shut his eyes tight and wish that he might have a vision of that dear Friend whom he felt sure that mother could see and hear so clearly. Also the grave face of his father came up before him, never, as far as he could remember, lit by a smile, always looking as if the tremendous realities of life had left their indelible impress there. He knew that while he had loved his mother he had reverenced his father, but never seemed able to get beyond that feeling of awe-stricken admiration. Then came the death of both those holy ones, the breaking up of the old home, and the gradual loss through the struggling years that followed of personal communion with his mother’s Friend, while still retaining through all the hardnesses of a whaler’s life a blend of her sweet temper and his father’s exalted rectitude. And now he was set a-wondering in the presence of this gentle ‘greenie’ how much he had lost through his gradually letting slip his acquaintance with his mother’s God. But like most men of Anglo-Saxon race, he felt a strange fear lest he should betray to anyone around him these ennobling, uplifting thoughts that welled up from his heart. His face burned and his voice trembled curiously as he walked among his toiling men, glancing furtively at each familiar face as if wondering whether any of them could detect any difference in him—for difference he knew there was—from what he had been yesterday.

After a short interval of oversight, a few words with the officers who were superintending the commencement of the trying-out process, and an entirely contented look around at the storminess of the night, he said to the second mate, who was in charge of the watch at the time: ‘Wall, Mr. Peck, I guess I’ll go and turn in fur a spell. It’s goin’t’ be a dirty night, an’ ye mout’s well rig up the cover over th’ try-works, ’case it rains, ’r she ships any water. Don’t want th’ pots bilin’ over ’n catchin’ light, do we? Nawthin’ else yew’d like t’ talk t’ me abaout, is there, ’fore I go below?’ ‘No, sir,’ said the officer; ‘everythin’ seems to be goin’ in good shape so far, ’n’ as fur this dirt, wall, I reckon the moon’s ’bout due at seven bells ’n’ I shouldn’t wonder if she scorfs it all.’ ‘Ha, ha,’ laughed the old man; ‘it’s mighty certain she wunt scorf the fly jib anyhaow. It’s too well fast fur thet. Good-night.’ He alluded to the old, old yarn at sea of the careful mate who, because the night was threatening in appearance, asked the skipper whether he shouldn’t ‘take some of the kites off her.’ ‘Oh, no,’ said the skipper, ‘the moon’ll scorf (eat) all that’ (alluding to the ugly appearance of the clouds). But when aroused by the tumult on deck an hour or two latter the skipper came rushing on deck and anxiously inquired what had become of the flying jib, the mate replied nonchalantly, ‘Oh, the moon’s scorfed that, sir.’

Diving below, the old man took a searching look at his barometer, noted the direction of the ship’s head, and then passed on to his own tiny state-room, slipped off his boots and sat down. Alone with his thoughts, they flew back again to that far-off time to which they had been directed by his contemplation of Rube. Slowly his head dropped upon his hands, lower and lower he bowed himself, until, utterly oblivious of all the sea-noises around him, of the uneasy motion of his ship as she headed the rising sea, or of his responsibility for the welfare of every soul on board, he slipped down upon his knees, and as simply as ever he did when a child, but with an added fervour, he lifted up his heart to God.

It was at least half an hour before he rose from his knees, but in the space of that brief period he had learned more than most men learn during the whole of their lives. Confessing his sins he asked for pardon, admitting his blindness he asked for sight, acknowledging his ignorance he asked for teaching; and he obtained all his desires. Then with a sense of lightness and freedom from care never before felt he lay down on his little settee to be ready for a call, and in about the space of one minute was fast asleep.

On deck, the scene to an uninitiate would have been appalling. With a monotonous, never-ceasing, and ever-increasing wail the wild wind bore down out of the windward blackness upon the brave old ship. A peep over the weather bulwarks revealed the long, long ranges of gleaming wave-crests rolling down upon her, their uncanny greenish light flickering against the black background and showing by the distances they were apart longitudinally how mightily the waves had grown. There was a fascination about them, too, which held the observer gazing until like a splash of small shot a spray of spindrift struck him in the face and sent him smarting to shelter. But as if it had been the finest of summer evenings the steady stress of labour continued. Up from the blubber-room were hurled the massive horse-pieces of blubber, carved with so much labour from the great blanket pieces by the slipping, struggling labourers below. Of all the strange places I have ever seen I think the blubber-room of a whaleship at night in a gale of wind is beyond comparison the strangest. It is a square space of about thirty feet each way and between six and seven feet high. Into it are piled the blanket pieces, those immense widths of blubber, each weighing a ton or so, which have been ripped from the carcass of the whale. In uncouth masses they lie one upon another, piled often almost to touching the beams overhead. As the ship rolls they glide and heave upon one another as if still actuated by the breath of the monster they so lately covered. From a beam, generally in a corner, swings a primitive lamp, little more than accentuating the darkness. And at the beginning of operations two dim forms crawl precariously about among those greasy masses, occasionally slipping a leg down into a temporary crevice and having it squeezed into numbness before being able to withdraw it. They wield short-handled spades like Dutch hoes, and with infinite labour hew off blocks from the masses of blubber of a fit size to pass through the mincer. When they have a dozen or so of these blocks ready they must needs in some unexplainable fashion balance themselves under the hatchway, and with a sort of diminutive pitchfork hurl the blocks (horse-pieces) upwards into a shallow trough secured to the coaming or upper edge of the hatch, whence the attendant on the mincer loads a tub with them and drags them away. And unless these blubber-room men be exceedingly skilful as well as strong, they will not only never have a breathing space during the six hours of their stay below, but will, in addition, have to bear much contumely from the officer in charge, who will be instant in his sarcastic inquiries as to what they may be doing below—whether they are asleep or not.

The clank-clank of the mincer is unceasing, tall tongues of flame from the funnels of the try-works make long red smears upon the gloom as they stream away to leeward, and the two harpooners feed the bubbling cauldrons with minced blubber, bale out the sufficiently boiled oil, and watch with unceasing care against a sudden splash of cold water into the pots, which may cause the oil to rise in a moment, and, overflowing into the furnaces, set fire to the ship. All the watch is so busy that there is no time to notice the weather, or moralise upon this most romantic scene—a ship’s company who, having succeeded in winning from a hostile element the spoil of the mightiest creature known, have now converted their vessel into a floating factory, and under the most extraordinarily difficult conditions conceivable are engaged in realising that spoil in order to convey it to their home port thousands of miles away.

Here let us leave them for awhile, and exercising our privilege of instant transition, glance back at the quiet village whence the departure of our hero withdrew so much consolation and manly assistance in the old age of his parents.

CHAPTER XI

AT THE OLD HOMESTEAD

Saturday night in the Eddy homestead. In their respective chairs, occupied by them with hardly a break through thirty-eight years of ideally happy married life, sat Farmer Eddy and his wife. The labours of the week were ended, the hired people gone to rest, and husband and wife sat face to face as they had done for so many years, but never until the last six months with such weary hearts. Mrs. Eddy had aged very much. Not that any care for her boy’s spiritual welfare worried her—she felt as certain of him in that respect as if he had been always under her eye. But since his departure from New Bedford in the Xiphias it was as if he had passed into the eternal silence, and although she said little her heart-hunger was terrible. His last letter was but half-a-dozen lines, hastily scrawled and posted without signature, telling his parents that he was outward bound on a South Sea whaling voyage, and in the hurry of the moment omitting to mention even the name of his ship. Naturally, therefore, as the days went by lengthening into weeks, the weeks into months, the disease of uncertainty made her its prey, and she aged fast, perhaps as much from the heroic effort she made to conceal her anxiety from her husband as from its direct effect.

Alas, what Mrs. Eddy endured has too often been the lot of American mothers. For in those days recruiting agents for the New England whalers prowled about the country beguiling simple young men with specious tales of the glories of a roving life and the wealth they would by-and-by bring home. And as the recruits never knew where they were going except that it was out upon the wide ocean, nor when they might possibly return, except that it must not legally be longer than four years, the news they were able to send their people at the time of shipment, even supposing they felt in good heart enough to do so, was of necessity extremely meagre. Nor were opportunities for sending letters frequent afterwards. An occasional whaler was spoken which might or might not be homeward bound in the course of a year or so. It was hardly worth while entrusting letters to such a casual packet as that. And the land touched was almost always carefully selected for its aloofness from civilisation, as well as its offering few inducements to a would-be deserter who was anxious to return home.

Farmer Eddy went about much the same as usual but noticeably graver, and, if possible, more gentle than ever. He never spoke to his neighbours about his son, and scarcely ever to his wife, but this latter omission mattered little, since at the evening prayer he had ever since Rube’s departure devoted at least half of that pleasant season to pleading with his Father for his son. Together as the old couple knelt they saw with the eye of faith Rube upheld in right-doing, cleansed by affliction, drawn nearer to God, and never unmindful of them. Their simple assurance that all was well with him never wavered, nor, although they so seldom mentioned his name at any other than these sacred times, did either of them lose his image from their mental vision for one waking hour. Here, however, Farmer Eddy had one advantage over his wife—the usual one, she was the mother. And as such she could no more help yearning over her absent son than she could help breathing. Her faith was as robust as her husband’s without doubt, but, oh, she wanted her boy back so badly.

In a worldly sense all had prospered with them, and looked as if that prosperity would continue. And they had been almost compelled to extend their possessions by the acquisition of the Fish farm. For after Priscilla’s departure with her husband, Mrs. Fish, feeling utterly alone except for the hired girls who came and went, visibly drooped day by day. Mrs. Eddy came as often as she could to visit her old friend, but that was not often, and moreover her visits were of necessity very short. Not only was Mrs. Fish lonely, but her heart was a prey to all sorts of apprehensions. Jake, her eldest son, was steadily going from bad to worse, leaving the oversight of the farm more and more to his younger brother Will, who, instead of rising to the occasion, chafed and fretted at his position of, as he put it, farm-bailiff without salary, except what Jake was minded to fling him occasionally with an air of lofty contempt. Unknown to either his mother or brother, but not unsuspected, Jake was also mortgaging the farm up to the very roof-tree of the house, and, with an infatuation almost amounting to lunacy, was spending the money in riotous trips to New York and Boston. He apparently did not permit himself to think at all of the certain ruin he was courting, nor spend one thought upon the unmerited suffering he was bringing upon his mother and brother.

The climax was reached at last by his returning from one of his New York trips accompanied by an exceedingly handsome but vulgar young woman, whom he swaggeringly announced as his intended bride. His brother and mother were sitting at their evening meal when this happened, and when he made the announcement his mother, with one swift and comprehensive glance at her son’s female companion, rose from her seat, saying, ‘Will, he’p me up stairs.’ Jake, his face flaring with rage, interposed between the departing pair and the door, demanding almost in a shout and with many oaths what they meant by insulting him and his intended wife. Releasing his mother’s arm, Will took a step towards his brother, saying quietly and distinctly: ‘Yew misbul shote, ain’t it ’nough fur yew t’ break mother’s heart with yer goin’s on but yew must insult her ole age by bringin’ thet home an’ flauntin’ it in her face. Naow, ’r ye goin’ t’ git aout o’ eour way or ain’t ye——?’

There were no more words. Jake, maddened, flew at his brother’s throat, and the pair, both strong young men, but the elder much debilitated by his recent excesses, writhed and wrestled and tumbled about the living-room like a pair of tigers. The woman Jake had brought with him, retreating to a safe corner, eyed the wretched struggle with a serene aloofness befitting a Roman amphitheatre, but the mother sat wringing her hands and feebly calling upon her sons for God’s sake to cease their unnatural strife. Suddenly, over the wreck of the table, the pair collapsed, Will uppermost. Hoarsely he shouted, as with one knee on his brother’s breast, one hand clutching Jake’s throat, he raised himself a little: ‘Y’ onnatural beast, will y’ git eout o’ this, ’r sh’ll I kill ye t’ onct? Y’ ain’t fit t’ live, I know, but b’ th’ ’Tarnal y’ ain’t fit t’ die. Will y’ git ’r shall I mash y’r face into a jelly?’ ‘Yes, I’ll go,’ gasped the almost choking man, and Will, carefully releasing him, watched him out of the house, and into the buggy, which had been waiting ever since he arrived. No sooner had the pair taken their seats, and the horse, under a merciless cut of Jake’s whip, had bounded off, than Will returned to his mother, finding her in a dead faint; indeed, looking as if coming to again was a quite unlikely contingency. Desperately alarmed, Will called for the hired girl, who had been busy outside, and leaving his mother to her care, hitched up his cart and drove furiously over to the Eddy place. It did not take many minutes for him to persuade Mrs. Eddy to return with him to the aid of his suffering mother. But when they arrived she was past all earthly comfort. Her mind wandered from the good man of her youthful days to Priscilla and Jake; the only one she did not mention in her rambling remarks was Will. But he, good fellow, made no sign of how this omission smote upon his heart. Nevertheless, could anyone have read his thoughts, it would have been seen how deeply he was wounded, and how sincere was his unspoken resolve that, should his mother die, the home of his youth, grown hateful to him, should know him no more.

At 4 A.M. Mrs. Fish passed away, still unconscious of those around, still talking more or less intelligibly of her husband and elder son and daughter. And Mrs. Eddy, tired out, having first persuaded Will to retire, went to her own well-earned rest against the labours of the coming day. The following week tried her and her husband to the utmost, for Will, besides being almost penniless (his brother having had every cent he could lay hands on), manifested much eagerness to be gone and leave everything just as it was. Farmer Eddy was at his wits’ end what to do, and it was no small relief to him when a Boston lawyer came down empowered to sell the place and all that was on it to the highest bidder for the benefit of the mortgagees. Then it was that Mr. Eddy decided to buy, being, as he said, desirous that the heart-broken young man, now so eager to be gone, should, if he were ever able, be allowed to redeem the home of his childhood from the careful hand of a friend instead of seeing it pass into the unsympathetic grip of a stranger. Will professed entire indifference, but no doubt the unostentatious kindness of his father’s old friend did him much good—especially when in the kindest manner possible Farmer Eddy pressed upon him a sufficient store of dollars to allow him time to look around in Chicago, whither he was bent upon going.

Farmer Eddy saw him off, gave him his blessing, but very little advice (wise man!—full well he knew how advice at such a time would be received), but earnest encouragement to keep up communication between himself and his old home; ‘for—who knows?’ said the good old fellow—‘your sister may want a home some day.’ To his utter amazement Will turned upon him almost fiercely, saying: ‘That wouldn’t be a bad thing for her. It might throw for her the true light upon how she treated mother. Don’t talk t’ me of Pris. I don’t care a cent what becomes of her ——’ But the farmer, with uplifted hand, stayed him, saying: ‘Don’t, Will. Yew’re het up naow, an’ say wut ye don’t at all mean. Thar, we won’t persoo th’ subjec’. Let me know as often as ye can haow yew’re gittin’ along, an’ I’ll be glad. Good-bye, my boy, good-bye.’ And the last of the Fish family departed.

Thenceforward the Fish place received even more attention than did his own homestead from old man Eddy. He looked upon it in the light of a sacred trust, a view in which he was keenly supported by his wife. For he did cherish an earnest hope that some day his old friends’ children might be reunited, purged by suffering, and, returning to their old home, find with grateful hearts how good to them had been the God of whom they had thought so little. And to this end he and his wife added to their nightly intercourse with their Friend the petition that these wayward ones might yet be gathered in and find peace at home.

Of Priscilla, of course, they had never heard a word since her departure, but without a shade of resentment they remembered her and wondered how she was faring. Their ideas, naturally, could be only of the vaguest, since they knew no more than they did of Reuben where she was or whither she was going. But from what they had heard from Will, applying sensibly considerable allowance for pique, they feared that she had before now found how great a mistake she had made, and had repented too late to avoid the suffering it had entailed. But none of these reflections had the effect of making them despair of a righting of matters at the long last, and so they cheerfully took up the additional burden of their self-imposed duties, finding that, so far from their being irksome to perform, they brought with them many consolations. If only they could have heard from Rube! But apparently that could not be, and so they waited, in patient well-doing, for the breaking of the day.

When Jake, driven forth ignominiously from the home he had so wronged, by the brother he had despised, returned to New York, he was utterly reckless. Without troubling to look into his affairs, he and his companion were driven from the depot to a high-class hotel, where they immediately resumed the course of high living and deplorable extravagance which seemed to have become necessary to Jake’s life. Now, the squandering of money is a thing that requires very little teaching, and can be carried on successfully in most so-called centres of civilisation, but I doubt very much whether any great city can afford the spendthrift more facilities for speedily reaching the end of his resources than New York. For its plethora of supereminently wealthy men have perhaps unconsciously raised such a standard of expenditure as does not obtain anywhere else in the world, and, of course, this is ever before those fools who have neither sufficient money nor brains as a shining example to go and do likewise as closely as circumstances will permit them. Without blaming the multi-millionaires too much, there can be no doubt that the example most of them set in the direction of foolish waste of money is wholly evil.

So it came about that a fortnight after Jake Fish’s return to New York he had exhausted every possible means of raising funds, and was confronted with the prospect of being utterly unable to meet his bill due on Saturday at the Hoffman House. Sobered a little by this, he consulted his companion on the matter, and suggested her parting with some of the costly jewellery he had given her. Vain fool! She sympathised with him tearfully, avowed her willingness to share a crust with him rather than live in luxury with any other man, said the shock had so unnerved her that she must go and lie down awhile to recover herself, after which she would come with him and dispose of all the glittering ‘trash’—yes, she called it that—when they would go away to some quiet spot and be very happy. Overjoyed, Jake lavished multitudinous caresses upon her, sent her up stairs, and retired to the smoke-room to work out some plan for making these new funds go as far as possible without too much appearance of retrenchment. Then in his easy chair, surrounded by every luxury of appointment a man could desire, he fell asleep.

He was awakened by a waiter, who handed him a scented note. At first he stared at the man stupidly, only half awake, and utterly uncomprehending. Then as sense returned he tore open the envelope and read:

‘Dear Jake,—You’ve had a pretty high old time, and so have I. But you might have the savvy to let it go at that. You must be a bigger fool than even I took you for if you imagine that I am going to slide down to the bottom along with you, and begin by coughing up all the stuff you’ve paid me with. No, no; you’ve been playing long enough: now run along like a wise little man and earn something. I’m off on a much better campaign. Good luck.—Not yours,

‘A. C.

‘P.S.—If you feel inclined to kick, watch out how you do it. It isn’t very healthy exercise for you.’

Jake read this letter thrice without understanding a word of it. Its general import he knew, and it had paralysed him. He sat staring stupidly at the paper until the waiter, nudging him, politely called his attention to the fact that his bill was before him. That roused him as does the far-heard crack of the fowling-piece arouse the timid hare. Summoning all his energies, he dismissed the waiter with a curt ‘All right, I’ll ’tend t’ this d’reckly,’ and rising, lounged toward the lift, his head throbbing furiously. Poor wretch, he was really more fool than rogue—thoroughly selfish, yet beaten by one more selfish than himself, upon whom he had lavished all he had; heartless towards his own, yet punished for his benevolence to a stranger who had befooled him; he was really a fair type of a large class of men everywhere who are only virtuous because they lack opportunity or initiative to be otherwise. Reaching his sumptuous room, he found his clothes bestrewing the floor, showing how thorough had been the search made by the departed one for portable plunder. He felt his head beginning to swim, and realising that he must escape or make the acquaintance of a Tombs gaoler, he pulled himself together, slammed his door, and, descending by another lift, passed from the hotel and was soon lost in the crowd.

Now, there is one tremendous difference between the cities of North America and those of Great Britain in respect of their harbourage of such men as Jake Fish was now in a fair way to become. London, for instance, seems to offer a premium to the most worthless. A loafing, shiftless vagabond need exercise no ingenuity, no originality of resource, in order to be better looked after in every way than, let us say, a seaman in a merchant ship. London workhouses swarm with humans of this type, well fed, well clothed, well housed, and, oh, so tenderly entreated as to work. Any little ailment that a working man would never notice is considered sufficient warrant for lapping these spoilt children of fortune in cotton wool and tenderly nursing them back to convalescence again in palace chambers fitted with all the appliances for the healing of disease that the mind of benevolence and medical skill can devise. And for all this the sorely burdened ratepayer must needs provide, although he, in common with most of England’s working poor, thinks of the workhouse as the home of disgrace, and would in most instances rather die of starvation in silence than go there.

But in North America, while there is great store of loafers, not confined either to the lowest class, they must have some original talent, some inventive enterprise about them, whether in criminal way or merely low trickery. Otherwise they become hoboes, or as we should call them in England ‘tramps,’ whose chief qualifications must be an unconquerable aversion to work, great powers of passive endurance, a love of filth—in fact, a reversion to the worst type of savage without one savage virtue. There is little room, however, for the hobo in a city. The exercise of his chosen calling needs great open spaces sparsely peopled, where there are hardly any police. Moreover, the hoboes, according to Mr. Josiah Flynt, are a close corporation looking with much disfavour upon would-be recruits, so that admission to their ranks is not easily gained.

Jake Fish then, had he realised it, was in evil case. He was a veritable prodigal, unrepentant, and with no father’s house to return to in case of repentance. Only fit for farming, and hating that furiously, he had no idea of doing anything else for his bread, and, as we have seen, his tastes were costly. Consequently, now that he had spent all, he felt that he had a bitter grievance against society for not graciously providing him with the means to continue his career of viciousness. But he was, besides, an arrant coward, an essentially worthless man, such as may be, by a miracle, made into a useful member of society, but, alas, very seldom is. He drifted down, down, down. The few dollars in his pockets when he left the hotel were squandered with the same utter absence of forethought as had always characterised him, and then, when, driven by hunger, he would have obtained some labouring work, he found himself fiercely shoved aside by far better men.

He disappeared. Not that there is not work and food for all in the Great Republic, but the conditions of life are strenuous, and if a man will not work, and work hard, he must scheme, and that cleverly, or he will certainly disappear as Jake did, and no one will take any trouble to inquire whither.

Will, on the other hand—bright, eager, and industrious—arrived in Chicago with resolute determination to take his fate by the throat, also to husband his small resources with the utmost care while seeking among the busy throngs for something that he could do. And he was determined not to stand choosing, but to do as he had read that so many others had done—take the first employment offered, no matter how deficient in qualification he might feel himself to be for it, and, having once got work, to strive manfully to keep it, and rise from one point to another by ceaseless attention and industry, and, above all, to avoid the saloon (public-house) as he would a plague-spot. Fortunately for him, he had never acquired the taste for dissipation which had destroyed his brother, for opportunity had been lacking. It was not a question of moral principle at all. And now, although he did not know it, would not have believed it had he been told, he was in a position of the utmost danger. Without any home ties, with no religious convictions, nothing to safeguard him from ruin, he might easily have sunk; but he had no physical inclination for the destroying vices, having never been tempted.

At this juncture he was standing one day watching a busy little knot of porters loading up packages of hardware from a warehouse into a couple of heavy waggons. The swiftness and apparent eagerness with which they did their work, without any appearance of being driven, appealed to him, and unconsciously his face took on a wistful expression—he would so much have liked to be one of that busy band. A keen-eyed, pleasant-faced man of middle age, who stood in the doorway with a book in his hand making certain entries, caught sight of the waiting, earnest-looking man. And being of an imaginative, romantic turn of mind (which, scoff at the idea as you may, is almost essential to the making of a successful business man), he began in a side alley of his brain to build up a theory concerning this evidently country-bred young fellow who was watching manual labour being carried on with such manifest desire to take part in it. Moreover, the owner of the warehouse, for it was he, was a kindly Christian, whose interest in all men, but specially his own employés, was proverbial in Chicago—that humming hive of business that contains so much that is evil, but, thank God, has also so much that is pre-eminently good.

Will began to move away slowly, but Mr. Schermer made half-a-dozen swift strides after him, and tapping him smartly upon the shoulder, said, ‘Say, young man, are you looking for work?’ ‘I am, sir,’ Will replied smartly. ‘Then come right in here, and I’ll start you at once. I’m wanting a young fellow of your build pretty bad.’ And in ten minutes Will felt that he was on the high road to fortune. Plenty of work, not difficult to learn, good thews and muscle to do it, and a hearty, appreciative man at the head of things; he was delighted. More by a turn of Fortune’s wheel than any design discoverable by man, Will had fallen into just the place he needed, where not only did he receive fair play, but where the employer kept ever before himself the fact that each of his men was an individual soul for whom Christ died, and not just the cog of a machine; where the employer shouldered his responsibility for his men as he did the bills he endorsed, and with just the same absence of consciousness that he was doing anything more than his obvious duty. No one praised him for meeting his bills as they fell due; why should they praise him for considering the men who were serving him faithfully, and all the more faithfully because they knew full well that their employer had their interests at heart as well as his own—nay, that he regarded their interests and his as inseparable?

I must leave Will here, under the most favourable conditions, to push his manful way up the ladder of prosperity, and to preserve, if he can, a measure of humility with it all, in that it was his lot to fall into good hands without any seeking of his own. Also I have a half-guilty feeling that this has been a prosy old chapter, quite at variance with the strain of high adventure which I have endeavoured to maintain throughout the rest of the book. And now we must return to Priscilla.

CHAPTER XII

REPAIRING DAMAGES

The old Grampus, all unknowing of the hopes and fears and aches and pains she bore, rolled uneasily throughout that terribly long night. To tell the exact truth, she was often left entirely to herself, existing only by the good will of the elements or any passing ship. In much the same condition as the remnant of a beaten army, whose outposts, weary to death, fall down and sleep weltering in mud and blood because poor human nature has said her last word, the broken mate lay sleeping, his fractured leg, benumbed from heel to thigh, straightened out, and his utterly worn-out body not disturbing it by a single movement. The battered men below in the stifling reek of the foc’s’le also lay asleep (blessed be God for sleep and death), utterly unconscious of their woes. The shipkeepers, whom a sense of duty kept, desperate as their need was, from sleeping too long at one spell, lay in uncouth attitudes about the moonlit deck. Occasionally one of them would rise and aimlessly rove aft to the binnacle, gaze into its glittering oval with eyes that distinguished not North from South, and then with another owl-like glance aloft would stagger forward and tumble down asleep again. And the missing ones, six stalwart men who yesterday morning were each a centre of activity and private hopes, desires, and possibilities? At any rate their rest would be long and sound.

Priscilla woke about midnight, and looked uneasily about her. The almost stifling atmosphere of the tiny cabin, the reek of the lamp, and the innumerable exhalations from below, made the place almost unbearable. And as with a feeling of nausea overpowering her she surveyed her prison, there came to her, like a voice from a previous life, the most vivid recollection possible of the sweet breath stealing over the fields of her old home; of the careless days when singing she went about her household work; of the many delights brought by the changing seasons, each with its own particular charm; yes, even the hard, bitter winters when all the land was held in a grip of steel, and only amusement, out of doors, seemed possible. That seemed to her like a glimpse of paradise, from which, by her own act and because she did not value its joys, she had been shut out: she had exchanged it for this. And her eyes filled, her heart swelled with self-pity, regret, repentance, until suddenly a hoarse murmur by her side resolved itself into: Pris, whar air ye?’

Immediately she was recalled to present realities. Swift as thought she had asked and received strength, and leaning over her helpless husband, she said, quite tenderly, ‘Yes, dear, I am here. What can I do for you?’ Apparently ignoring her gentle question, he muttered savagely but disconnectedly, ‘What’s th’ matter? whar’s everybody? what’s doin’? call th’ mate.’ I do not see any necessity for indicating the stream of fantastic blasphemies which followed, apparently to emphasise his demand for information. They made her shrink, as does a delicate skin upon meeting a cold blast; but as soon as she was able she said, ‘The mate has been badly hurt, Ramon, but I can call the second mate if you will. He can explain so much better than I can what has happened.’ ‘Well, whyn’t yew call him, then? Kain’t ye see, yo’ pulin’ idiot, ’at I want t’ know—t’ know, d’ ye hear?’ More horrible emphasis, in the midst of which Priscilla crept from the cabin, and, going to the companion, rung a little handbell, an agreed signal for summoning the steward. That worthy man was lapped in profoundest slumber by the side of the galley, but at almost the first tinkle of the little bell he sprang to his feet, and, hastening to the companion, listened breathlessly to his mistress’s orders (he called them so, but they sounded more like entreaties).

As soon as he understood them he departed, and returning in two minutes announced to Priscilla that he had succeeded in arousing the second mate, who was coming immediately. Receiving Priscilla’s instructions to keep handy in case she wanted anything, he retired to the lee-side of the skylight and waited. In about a minute the second mate appeared, still heavy with sleep (the deep sleep of utter exhaustion from which he had been aroused), and lumberingly made his way down into the darksome cabin. Tapping gently at the skipper’s state-room door, he was greeted with a torrent of oaths, and understood that if he didn’t hurry in nameless consequences awaited him. Trembling in every limb, he instantly obeyed, and presently stood beside his commander’s couch like an utterly abject coward. Yet he was, as we have seen, nothing less than a hero. His deeds on the preceding day were those of a man who counted the preservation of his own life but a very little thing, if haply he might save some of his shipmates from death. In the midst of those aggressive monsters he did not quail, but led his men on to deeds as noble as any that have ever been recorded—yet here he stood abashed and quivering before a helpless man morally as much his inferior as it was possible for a man to be. Mystery of mysteries, and one that men have never yet taken sufficient account of, even with the stupendous object-lesson of that utterly contemptible animal, but supereminent commander of men, Napoleon, before their eyes. The meanest soldier of Napoleon’s armies was a greater hero than he; but the possession of that awful power of domination enabled this utter egotist, this unutterable cad, to rule Europe and send to sordid deaths rejoicingly hundreds of thousands of men, most of whom were in a moral and physical sense immeasurably superior to himself.

Thus Mr. Winslow stood before his skipper, who, glaring up at him with an expression of fiercest contempt in his black eyes, demanded of him why he had not reported before the doings of that disastrous day. Falteringly, as if personally to blame for the skipper’s incapability of receiving any information before, Mr. Winslow began his melancholy narration. His nervousness, coupled with a most excusable desire to make the best account he could of an exceedingly bad job, caused him at times to be almost unintelligible, and subjected him to the fiercest abuse from the skipper. But this incitement had one good effect. It tended to brevity of account, and in ten minutes there was little left to tell. For a moment or two after he ceased speaking there was a dead silence, through which the ceaseless wash of the watchful waves outside against the topsides could be felt rather than heard.

Then suddenly the skipper spoke again. ‘’Spose ye’re all hard at it repairin’ damages, hey?’ ‘Well, sir,’ stammered the officer, ‘ye see, sir ——’ ‘Give me none o’ yer lyin’ backin’ an’ fillin’, y’ lazy hog, ’r I’ll ——’ He got no further. All Mr. Winslow’s manhood came to his assistance, breaking through the mysterious bonds that had held him so long. With all his nervousness gone, he made one stride nearer the skipper, a dangerous light gleamed in his blue eyes, and he said: ‘Stop right thar, Cap’n Da Silva. Ther’ ain’t a man aboard this ship but wut’s done his duty like a man, an’ no one could ha’ done any better. We’re all nearly dead with fightin’ fag, all ’cept me sleepin’ w’ere we fell down, an’ some of us is broke up so in body ’at it’ll be months before we’re fit again. An’ you dare t’ lie there ’n’ speak t’ me ov lyin’ and laziness. Say it again, an’ jes’ ’s if yew wuz any other varmint I’ll choke th’ life outen ye where ye lie.’ He wound up with a terrible oath. But Priscilla rose and confronted him, her grave eyes looking unnaturally large in the whiteness of her face. ‘Go on deck, Mr. Winslow,’ she said; ‘you forget yourself. The Captain is very ill and irritable, and cannot be held responsible for what he says.’ Without a word the second mate bowed his head and departed, leaving her alone to face the fiendish malice of her husband, who, as soon as his officer had departed, turned upon her and exhausted even his perverted ingenuity in abuse.

Strange to say, this bad exercise seemed to improve his bodily condition, for in about an hour, during which Priscilla waited on him with the utmost care and in as perfect a silence as if she were stone deaf to his shameful words, he ordered her to assist him to dress. When she had done so he staggered to the state-room door, rudely thrusting aside her proffered arm, and dragged himself on deck. As soon as he was gone from the room she prayed with all her heart on her lips for peace, filled with pity for the poor men above now that their tyrant was unloosed again. A hoarse cry of pain sent a thrill of sympathy through her, but she would not be distressed, believing that in some way she would have a satisfying answer to her prayer.

On deck the skipper, his cold heart full of malicious intent, had stumbled over the body of the steward lying by the side of the cabin skylight, and kicking savagely at the prostrate man had aroused him to an immediate sense of his peril. Scrambling to his feet, the frightened black man was slinking below, when the hoarse command of the skipper to ‘Come here’ arrested him, and he obeyed with shaking knees. ‘Whar’s the helmsman?’ demanded the Captain. ‘I d’ no, sah,’ pleaded the steward. ‘I’ll go see, sah.’ ‘Stop right whar y’ air, will ye?’ was the fierce answer, and in the dim light of the binnacle the steward saw the skipper’s hand go to his hip-pocket, produce something that glittered, and immediately a couple of shots rang out startlingly through the quiet night. At that dread summons men began to appear from all around, first of them all the second mate, with wild inquiry in his eyes. ‘Mr. Winslow,’ snarled the skipper, whose voice was growing stronger with each word he spoke, ‘call all hands t’ make sail. A hand ’t th’ wheel at once.’ By this time all those who were able to do so had mustered, and with the instinctive habit of obedience, as if all recollection of their recent interview had disappeared from his mind, the second mate replied in his usual tone, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ then roaring, ‘All hands make sail, loose taups’ls ’n t’gallants’ls fore and aft. Clear away stays’ls, jib, ’n’ spanker. Naow git a move on yerselves, d’ ye hear?’

There was a rush to obey, for all felt somehow that their brief season of relief from the skipper’s oversight had come to an end, and as they disappeared in different directions with their old frantic haste, the skipper said to the second mate in a voice that could not be overheard by any other: ‘See hyar, Mr. Winslow, fur what yew said to me to-night I’ll pay ye full price an’ interest, ef it takes me all this voy’ge. But fur now yew go scot free ’cause I need yer assistance, ’n’ I hain’t goin’ t’ hev enny limejuicer rot of bullyin’ my officers ’fore the men an’ destroyin’ disciplin’. Only ef thar’s enny sign ov ye playin’ it on me, wall, yew’ll hev to shoot quick ’r yew’ll be a goner. I’m heeled an’ I’m watchin’ fur ye.’ Again the second mate replied steadily, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ and almost instantly after his shouts of ‘Sheet home fore taups’l, sheet home mizen taups’l, histe away stays’ls,’ &c., made the solemn night hideous.

A low groan a little forward of where the skipper stood caused him to move that way, and, stooping, he found the mate, who had been aroused to a miserable consciousness of bone-wrenching pain by the clamour around him. Stooping towards him, the skipper said in a grating tone, ‘Wall, ’n’ wut’s wrong with yew? Whyn’t yew gettin’ abaout yer dooties? Pretty fine condition yew’ve let the ship git into in a few days.’ Pausing as if for a reply, and receiving none, the skipper went on, ‘What in thunder yew lyin’ thar fur? Don’t ye know it’s “all hands”?’ ‘Kain’t move, sir,’ came slowly from the mate’s parched lips, as if dragged thence by torture, ‘fur me right arm an’ leg seem’s if they wuz one big pain. Fact, I seem to be all raw on thet side of me. Kain’t I hev a drink o’ water, sir?’ ‘Wall, I guess yew kin. Here, boy!’ to one of the younger men hastening across the deck, ‘give the mate a drink of water, an’ look slippy.’ The skipper looked on while the unfortunate man drank as if his poor throat had been a bed of unslaked lime. Then he said, ‘I guess yew wun’t du any wuss till daylight, ’n’ I’ll be all th’ better fit to see wut kin be done with ye. But yew’ve made a hell ov a mess ov th’ cruise, naow, ain’t ye?’ The sufferer drew in his breath sharply as this mental blow was added to all his physical sufferings, but he did not—indeed, he could not—answer. The merciful climax of suffering was reached, the broken human machinery protested vainly to the surcharged brain, and Mr. Court, relapsing into blessed insensibility, passed into a place where neither the malignity of man nor the liabilities of the body could trouble him.

The Captain strode away muttering until he stood by the wheel and gazed into the face of the compass. He was revolving in his mind the possibilities of fetching the Cape Verde Islands, as they were now on the edge of the Doldrums, those neutral latitudes between the trade winds that are such a sore trial to the patience of sailing-ship masters. Only a gentle zephyr was stirring, like the last breath of the departing N.E. trade winds, and it was rather a serious question to decide whether to struggle eastward to Brava, or keep on southward, doing all the repairs possible until reaching Rio de Janeiro. One thing only was needed to turn the scale—the personal touch. And it availed. He knew the place so well; although he had not been born there, much of his youth had been spent there, and he was sure not only of getting a few fresh hands who would be devoted to himself, but there would not be the faintest opportunity given for any one of his remaining crew to desert. So he gave a muttered order to the helmsman, followed by a shout of ‘Square away the mainyard,’ as the old ship fell off the wind. With his usual skill and alertness he conned her as she slowly wore round on to the port tack, and to his grim satisfaction he found that she would head a little to the northward of east, and that the breeze was even then freshening a little.

By this time the whole of the available canvas had been set, and the men were busy coiling up the gear. Again the skipper called Winslow to him, and in a quiet, passionless tone gave him certain orders concerning the repairing of damage that would keep all hands busy for some time to come. Then the carpenter and cooper were summoned, and each received a few vitriolic remarks concerning their so-called laziness, coupled with a warning that before long they would have paid very dearly for the advantage they had taken of his helplessness. Moreover, he told them that, being now quite well again, he was fully prepared to keep them at their work, if he had to do it at the mouth of a revolver. They stood perfectly silent and submissive, neither attempting the faintest justification of himself, and when dismissed with the contemptuous remark, ‘Naow git t’ hell eout er this, an’ do some work,’ they turned and slunk away like beaten curs. Both were Americans of the best type, both were splendid workmen of middle age, with whose way of performing their duties it would seem utterly impossible to find any fault, and yet both endured such utterly undeserved and blistering contumely as this without a word, and, what is more, without a thought of retaliation. So well had they been trained in whaleship ways.

Thus having resumed the reins of power in altogether vigorous fashion, and reasserted his ability to make himself feared as well as obeyed fore and aft, the skipper went below, growling as he passed the helmsman, ‘Naow jes’ keep her full an’ bye, an’ ef I hear anythin’ shakin’, by—— I’ll shake yew, till y’ don’ know whether yew’re dead ’r alive.’ The man replied cheerfully in the stereotyped phrase, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ relieved beyond measure to find that he should be free of the presence of his enemy for a little while, at any rate.

The skipper’s first action on getting below was to send for the steward by ringing his bell, and on the darkey’s immediate appearance to order some food and coffee to be prepared for himself. Of his wife he took not the slightest heed. Then going to his medicine-chest he took out the little book of simple instructions in surgery and medicine that is always part of the furniture of a ship’s medicine-chest, and, seating himself at the cabin table, with one hand fiercely tugging at his black beard, he began to study the chapter on setting broken limbs. A sardonic smile twitched upwards the corners of his mouth as he imagined how the poor mate would suffer. There was just a glint of pleasure in the thought lighting the otherwise beclouded horizon of his mind. When he had settled to his own satisfaction the course of his operations upon his mate (fancy learning to set a broken arm and leg in an hour!), he sulkily called to his wife, ‘Here, you, git me some bandages ready, an’ be quick abaout it.’ She, watching for his lightest word, came on the instant, and quietly asked how long and how wide he wanted them. Even this essential question seemed to afford him an opportunity of venting more of his spleen upon her, but wearying of that soon (indeed, he was as yet far from strong), he supplied the information, and went on with his studies. Then lying down upon the transom locker he composed himself to sleep, well satisfied with his watches work.

On deck the ship hummed like a hive. Even the men who had been so badly bruised that the most elementary exercise of humanity would have allowed them to rest, dragged themselves wearily up out of the forecastle, and did whatever they could do towards the general refitment which was going on. Some were hoisting on deck coils of ‘tow-line,’ the beautiful rope which is fastened to the harpoons; others were taking the superfluous turns out of it, and stretching it by passing it through a block as high as the topgallant crosstrees, and coiling it again and again the reverse way of the lay. Others, again, were fitting harpoons to poles, and securing to them their bridles of tow-line; others were doing the same to lances, or putting keen edges on new weapons. Several, under the carpenter’s orders, were working away at the repairing of the one boat which had been picked up, sawing timbers and planks, and carefully unriveting broken knees from splintered skin. Two men were assisting the cooper to make new line-tubs. And amidst it all Mr. Winslow moved alert, with eyes like a cat’s, unhindered by the encompassing darkness, but for all that earnestly desirous of the day.

Unto these toilers at last came the blessing of light, bringing with it a certain satisfaction, as it always does, to those who have been working in the dark, but also sadly associated with the idea that the skipper would soon be on deck among them. Every now and then one of them would glance furtively aft in search of his dreaded appearance, and, relieved temporarily by the assurance that he was not yet among them, would renew energetically his efforts to accomplish his task. Suddenly all hands were startled by his voice, all its old vigour having returned, shouting, ‘Mr. Winslow.’ The second mate immediately hurried aft, and saying inquiringly, ‘Yes, sir,’ awaited his orders. ‘Clear away the carpenter’s bench, an’ bring it aft here!’ snarled the Captain. ‘Pedro, Bibra, come here.’ The carpenter’s bench having been placed on the fore side of the skylight, athwart the deck, the steward made his appearance, carrying the bandages and certain bottles, also some pieces of rough but thin boards, just portions of canned meat cases with the nails drawn, split to necessary narrowness, and cut in proper lengths. At an order from the Captain, the two Portuguese harpooners lifted the still insensible body of the mate on to the bench, and began to bare his broken limbs, a most difficult task, owing to their having become glued to the clothing with dried blood.

This operation roused him at once from his stupor, and with groans that shook his whole frame his glazed eyes opened. He muttered feebly, ‘For God’s sake go easy: ain’t I sufferin’ enough?’ But a glance at the skipper showed these rough attendants that, even had they been inclined to yield to the mate’s prayer, and ‘go easy,’ they dare not, so, disregarding his agony, they persevered, and after dragging and slitting and soaking his clothes, succeeded at last in exposing the leg and arm, each with fragments of bone protruding through the torn and swollen flesh. By the time this had been done the mate could only feebly gasp, ‘Water! water!’ and the steward, with a fearful glance at the skipper for permission, put a pannikin full to his cracked lips. Then with a corner of the towel he carried he was about to wipe the sweat from the mate’s drawn face, but an execration from the skipper caused him to scuttle back into his place like a frightened rabbit.

The operation began, and really it is questionable whether the utter callousness and brutality of the operator were not more merciful to the sufferer than the tender, half-afraid manipulations of a kindhearted and unskilful man would have been. For in any case much pain had to be endured, and, as I have before noted, the human body can only feel a certain amount. When that has been borne, whatever you may have to endure does not matter in the least as far as your consciousness of it goes. It is a comforting thought when reading of the infliction of ancient tortures. So now, before the mangled arm had been straightened, the fragments of bone drawn within the swollen muscles, the mate had again lapsed into insensibility. The attendants glanced fearfully at the white, set face, and from it to the scowling visage of the skipper, but dared not utter their fears that the patient was dead. The operator worked on with a skill amazing to see in one who had never performed such an operation before, nor had ever seen such a thing done. Without again referring to his book, without a moment’s hesitation, he placed the splints, passed the bandages, saturated them with carbolic lotion, and then, having satisfied himself that, in spite of the ghastly appearance of the mate’s side, it was only an extensive superficial laceration—there were no ribs broken—he ordered the two harpooners to carry the patient to a mattress placed for his reception on the after corner of the deck behind the tiller, and leave him there. The steward was given orders to keep an eye on him, and feed him occasionally with a little soup and bread, and again the skipper retired below.

By this time the meal-hour had arrived—eight bells—and a brief respite from their labours was enjoyed by all hands. The day was fair and bright, the wind was steady at about north, and the old ship was making good progress. So Mr. Winslow sent everybody but the helmsman to breakfast, and himself came aft and sat beside his brother officer, full of pity, but oppressed by his own utter inability to do anything for him. But he had the satisfaction of noting how well the work of repairing the broken limbs had been done, and, as he was thinking how even the worst of men sometimes compel our admiration, he was intensely gratified to see Mr. Court open his eyes and look wearily round. ‘Wall, haow d’ ye feel abaout it naow, sir?’ said he earnestly. The mate stifled a groan, and at last managed to reply, ‘Winslow, I’d rather ten thousan’ times ’a’ died than ben thro’ wut I’ve suffered this laest twenty-four hours. But I don’t feel’s much pain’s I did, an’ if only I k’n git a little food ’at I k’n eat I think I sh’ll do. Ole man’s awful mad, ain’t he?’ Bending his head close down, Winslow gave the mate a hurried outline of the proceedings since the skipper’s return to command, and wound up by saying, ‘He ain’t said nawthin’ abaout it, but I believe he’s makin’ fur Cape Verdes. We’re carryin’ all sail to th’ eastward.’ ‘Thank God fur that,’ murmured the mate; ‘thar’ll be some chance ov seem’ a doctor if I need one by then. Say, Winslow, ef ye k’n git one o’ th’ fellows t’ give an eye to me now an’ then, I’ll be glad.’

For all answer Winslow patted his cheek, and in response to the breakfast bell departed below. He and the mate, while respecting each other, had not been chums in any sense of the word, but the recent happenings had drawn them very close, this feeling especially affecting Winslow. And he began to feel as if he could do anything, endure anything on the mate’s behalf while he was so helpless—yes, even dare the risk of being shot by the skipper, if he should go too far in his calculated brutality.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CAPTAIN GOES ASHORE

Favoured by exquisite weather, and trade-winds hanging well to the northward, the Grampus ploughed steadily along towards her objective, no one but the skipper knowing that it was Brava. After the first three days of almost frantic labour the skipper’s experienced eye noted how stale the men had become; want of rest and poor food had reduced them so that threats and blows no longer goaded them; they were fast approaching that stage when nothing matters, and suffering least of all, because it had become a normal condition. So Captain Da Silva, being anything but a fool, ‘let up’ on them as he termed it, not because he considered their punishment at all adequate to the crime they had committed of being beaten in spite of having done their best, but because he needed their services in the future. He restored their regular watches, and although the amount of quite unnecessary work still carried on would have caused a mutiny in any British merchant ship, this crew chuckled to think what a good time they were now having. And, besides, their lives were not so devoid of interest, for there could be no doubt that they were bound to some anchorage—it did not matter much where—they would see the land again and perhaps taste vegetables.

And the sorely wounded mate, despite the roughness of his treatment, the almost utter absence of nursing, steadily improved. His iron constitution, a certain ox-like patience, and the absence of drugs combined with perfectly pure air—all these helped to make his recovery marvellously rapid. But he almost had a relapse ten days after the accident. He had so far progressed as to be able to sit up upon an improvised little platform by the taffrail, and was watching the sea, when his dull eye suddenly brightened, his form stiffened, and lifting up his voice he raised the cry of ‘Blow!’ The skipper since the surgical operation had held no conversation with the injured man, except one or two of the briefest remarks passed each day, just what were absolutely necessary. But now he spun round on his heel, his black eyes flaming, and shouted, ‘Whar away, Mr. Court? Aloft there! wut ye doin’? Kain’t ye see ’t all?’ Springing up on the little hurricane deck peculiar to all whaleships, he at once caught sight of the whale, a big lone fellow, proceeding in leisurely fashion due south. Without apparently considering for one moment the fact that he had only two boats to use, he issued his orders, sharp and sudden like rifle-shots. Sail was shortened to the topsails, the vessel put upon the other tack; then, springing upon the starboard quarter, where the best boat hung, he shouted, ‘’Way boats!’ sweeping contemptuously away the third mate, who of course was standing by to take his place in his regular craft. A whirring of the sheaves followed, and down went the boat, striking the water fairly and being released at once with a smartness delightful to see. Then, grasping the dangling falls with one hand, the skipper turned to the mate, who lay fretting himself into a fever at his inability to move, saying as coolly as if just setting off for a pleasure trip, ‘Guess yew k’n con th’ ship whar y’ air, Mr. Court, kain’t ye?’ ‘Sure, sir,’ murmured the mate, the prospect of being able to do something seeming delightful to him. No answer, but for a moment the skipper’s body was outlined against the sky as he launched himself downwards, struck the boat, seized the steer oar, and issued his orders. Away flew both boats as if the lives of their crews depended upon their utmost speed.

Now, I do not wish to weary my readers with repeated accounts of whale-fights, and therefore I must omit all the circumstantial details of this one. But I do need to say that Captain Da Silva had apparently found exceeding compensation for his late tribulations in this opportune encounter, and he behaved as one possessed of a demon of destruction, to whom no mishap could possibly come. Yet he was by no means reckless. Every precaution that could be taken against disaster he took, but, on the other hand, he neglected no opportunity of rushing in whenever and wherever the slightest opening presented itself. Scorning bomb-lances, he used only the long primitive spear, and with fiendish howls he ordered the second mate to keep aloof in readiness to aid in case of accident. The whale, evidently an old hand at the game, tried every ruse known to whales, but in vain, for, rolling over towards the oncoming boat, and sinking his body in the middle in order to get a grip of the boat with his gaping jaws, he felt suddenly the diamond-shaped head of a lance gliding through the thick muscles of his throat downward to his mighty heart. Six feet from that searching point the captain leaned his shoulder upon the lance-butt, lending all his great strength to the thrust. The boat passed to the other side of the body. ‘Pull ahead all!’ yelled the skipper, and out drew the steel, distorted to the likeness of a conventional lightning flash. ‘Pull all!’ again yelled the skipper, and in response the boat shot away from the vast writhing body, so fatally pierced that in three minutes, with a few gigantic convulsions, it lay still, dead.

Again the voice of the skipper arose—no note of triumph in it, no suggestion of rest for his crew. ‘Hull in thet line, lively naow. Hyar yew,’ to the after oarsman, ’histe thet wheft’ (small blue signal flag) ‘’n’ wave fur th’ secon’ mate t’ come up.’ So they hauled up alongside of the whale and cut the line from the harpoon, by which time Mr. Winslow, who had kept close to the fight all the time, was also alongside. ‘Naow,’ shouted the skipper to him, ‘git thet fluke-rope passed ’s if ye knew haow, an’ be ready with yer eend to pass aboard when I come. Pull two, starn three, so, all together,’ and away shot the boat towards the ship, which was coming down towards them at a fine rate. So fast, indeed, did the two craft draw together, that barely ten minutes had elapsed from the time the skipper’s boat left the whale until he was again on board and, hoisting his boat, was issuing his orders as if he were an engineer handling the cranks, levers, and throttle-valves of his engines. Now he was in his element—now he felt the primal delight of power—to rule his fellows and bend to his moulding will. The whale was not large as regards bulk, but full of fatness—so full, indeed, that the utmost care must needs be exercised lest the hoisting gear should tear out of the almost rotten blubber. The operations were conducted in peerless fashion, the skipper being apparently the mind of all hands—his late disablement appeared to have given him an impetus that none of his previous experiences had supplied. So great, indeed, was he that muttering passed from man to man after this fashion: ‘Oh, but he’s a horse, ain’t he?’ ‘Don’t he do it?’ ‘What a man he is!’ &c.

The work of securing the spoil was carried on with such vigour, such exquisite skill, and due apportionment of labour, that before the day was closed all the worst of the duty was done, and the skipper strode proudly the scanty limits of his quarter-deck with the mien of a man who could not possibly learn from any a better way of doing his work. And, as I have already noted, he had also earned the intense admiration of all hands, although each one of those men was aching from head to heel with the extraordinary strain put upon him.

And Priscilla? Well, she had not suffered. She had learnt to wait in patience the outcome of all things—not to be distressed by strange noises as of strife, or no less strange interludes of silence, when it seemed as if everyone but herself was dead. Even when upon the deep quiet (as of the grave) which enwrapped her there impinged a great noise, she did not shrink or shudder: she just looked up and was comforted. That she should have been thus becalmed, as it were, in the midst of tempests, that to her wilful, wayward heart should have come so bountiful a measure of the Divine patience, will naturally seem incredible to many—quite as great a miracle as the raising of the widow’s son. But, thank God! there are also many of us who know that such miracles are daily wrought by the direct interposition of God. Sometimes man is honoured by being the instrument in such cases, but more often they are the outcome of an answer given by the trembling, tired soul out into the darkness whence comes the comforting, still small voice.

When at last the skipper came down he wore all the self-conferred honours of a successful tyrant. He had vindicated his position as the one man who could do things without making mistakes, who could be depended upon to come upon the scene when disaster seemed imminent, and, taking the helm of affairs, conduct them triumphantly to victory. And the knowledge was almost too much for him. He strode into his state-room and flung his orders at Priscilla much as if she had been a negro slave—with little distinction between her and the steward. And she, with calmest demeanour, obeyed him to the foot of the letter. She gave him no cause of complaint, and to his intense surprise he found himself looking furtively at her and wondering how it was she did not cry or protest or do something, anything except act like one whom nothing could make unhappy or disobedient. At last he could no longer endure the spur of his curiosity, and he said, in strangely subdued tones (the steward having gone on deck), ‘Wut’s th’ matter with ye, Pris? Ain’t feelin’ sick, air ye? Yer lookin’ kinder curis, y’ know.’ She turned her calm face to him and said, ‘No, Ramon; I’m feeling very well, thank you. Is there anything more I can do for you?’ He did not answer. For his keen Latin wits had come up against something that was quite outside of his experience. Something of the baffled rage of the early persecutors possessed him as he realised that his wife had passed into a region from which he was quite shut out. So he hurled a savage curse, a farrago of Portuguese blasphemy, at her, which sounded like the rattling of manacles, and passed on deck again.

Remember, if you would blame Priscilla for not trying to win this bad man, that she knew him, knew that any language she might use would be utterly unintelligible to him, knew that his long and successful career of cruelty had hardened in him all the baser attributes, and she felt it would be hopeless to try. She felt, too, that she would only be bringing more suffering down upon herself, and was not at all confident as to the limit of her endurance. She was wrong, of course: she had not a sufficiently ample idea of the power of God to save. But we dare not blame her: many of us in her position would have gone mad. And she did pray for him, but without the faintest belief that her prayer would be answered. She felt, as Mr. Moody once expressed it, as if when she prayed for that man the heavens above her were as brass, that prayers on his behalf could not ascend.

So the Grampus sped onward towards Brava under the most favourable conditions possible. The work of securing the spoil of the whale was carried through in marvellous fashion; the wind held true to the north, even sometimes a point to the westward of north, and freshened enough to give the old ship a speed, rap-full, of five knots an hour. Whether it was any anticipation of meeting old acquaintances (a man like that never has friends) or not, the skipper, too, was certainly less severe than usual in his treatment of his men. He even condescended to inquire occasionally after the health of his mate, who was doing wonderfully well in the pure air and utter lack of all medicine, aided by his splendid constitution. So well, indeed, did the old ship progress, that by the time she had been restored to her ordinary condition of spotless cleanliness, the beautiful outlines of the islands were sighted, and all hands, with quickened pulse-beats, began to look forward to a little change in the ordered monotony of their lives. But great was their disappointment when they found that, instead of going as closely in as was safe, the Captain anchored his ship in thirty fathoms of water—far out to sea. And without the loss of an hour he ordered his boat to be manned (by Portuguese only), and, dressed like a bridegroom, mounted the rail preparatory to descending. The second mate stood near; the mate listened from the corner aft, where he sat helpless, with painful earnestness for any word the skipper might drop of his intentions.

‘See here, Mr. Winslow,’ drawled the skipper, ‘ye’ll keep the men at work, watch on watch, same’s at sea. Yew’ll keep a bright look-out for me comin’ back, as I shall be ’fore long, anyway. An’ if anythin’ happens ’at ye want me sudden, set the ensign at the peak.’ And without another word he was gone, and his boat’s crew, with the splendid stroke of the trained American whaleman, was making the pretty craft fly towards the shore, its captain standing erect in the stern, handling his steer-oar, like a figure of stone. The second mate watched him out of definition range, then, descending from the rail with a sigh, he sought the mate, saying, ‘Well, Mr. Court, whut ye think of him? Ain’t he a daisy? I really dunno haow it es, but th’ wuss he is th’ more I admire at him, until his back’s turned, ’n’ then I want t’ kill him. An’,’ dropping his voice, ‘d’ jever before in a ’Merican ship see a lady treated like this one? I have stood, I k’n stand, a good deal frum him, but if ever he raises his hand t’ thet poor broken-hearted woman when I’m erroun’ I’m goin’t’ kill him right in his tracks—naow, yew hear me!’ ‘Oh, shet yer head!’ fretfully replied the mate. ‘I know all abaout thet; wut’s th’ use er chawin’ it over? What I wunt t’ know is, wut sort of a gang of dagoes is he goin’ t’ bring with him. All his own relations, I suppose, ’n’ thar’ll be the usual amount er spyin’ an’ lyin’ an’ devilishness generally. If only I had this leg ’n’ arm o’ mine usable! I ben thinkin’ over a good many things sense I ben a-laying here, I tell ye, but I got one idea solid, ’n’ that is thet, live er die, I’m a-goin’ t’ stand up t’ him an’ whoever he brings aboard here, an’ hev’ my rights as mate. You, too, I know, Winslow; but only as man to man; no hatchin’ anything’ or conspirin’. We’ll leave that to them. But I do wish we could help the poor woman.’

‘Thank you, friends,’ said Priscilla, who had glided on deck and overheard the last portion of the mate’s remarks. ‘It’s very good of you to think about me, but I shall be grateful if you will behave as if I were not on board. I cannot, must not, be a source of trouble, and, moreover, the Captain is my husband. Now don’t, please don’t, think of helping me, as you call it, any more. I’ve got help of the best kind always available. I didn’t know I had until a short time ago. I’d forgotten God, as it seems to me God is forgotten at sea. But when I was ready to go mad with what I thought was my undeserved trouble, He came to my rescue, and now I feel I can bear anything. And, anyhow, what is my trouble compared with yours? Ah, Mr. Court, I have felt so much for you in your awful pain, and not to be able to help you at all. Are you in pain now?’ ‘Oh, no, ma’am, thank you kindly,’ murmured the mate; ‘that’s all over and done with. Anyhow, it was never quite as bad as you might think. Sounds a good deal worse than it is. I’m hurt more at havin’ to lie here doin’ nothin’ than by any pain I’ve got.’ ‘Well, I’m glad to hear you say so. Now I must go down. I feel that I’m doing wrong sitting up here talking to you, as I should certainly not be doing if my husband were here.’ And she departed below, leaving the two mates, with a totally new set of sensations, staring at each other dumbly.

Unfortunately, mischief had been done. One of the Portuguese sailors had been ostensibly occupied in renewing the seizings on the mizen shrouds, but for the last ten minutes he had devoted all his faculties to listening. Vainly; he did not know enough of the language to take in the conversation, but he knew that the Captain’s wife had been talking for a long time to the two mates. And he determined that the knowledge should not be wasted. The two officers, so deeply interested were they, did not notice this man, and when presently the second mate almost guiltily resumed his oversight of the men and their work he did not even see Lazzaro furtively glancing at him from the mizen rigging. No more was said by either of the mates or Mrs. Da Silva on the subject, and the work of the ship went on throughout the day with something of its old machine-like regularity. Night fell, and still no sign of the skipper. With deepening distrust and anxiety the officer saw the watches set, attending to every detail of his duties with the utmost fidelity, and reporting at eight o’clock all his doings to the mate. Mr. Court sent a respectful message to Priscilla on hearing this, acquainting her with the condition of affairs and assuring her that she had no cause for alarm. She would receive instant attention to her lightest wish, and probably the Captain would be aboard before morning. And so, quietly enough to all outward seeming, but with much anxiety among the afterguard, the night passed away.

Ashore the Captain was having what sailors term a mighty good time. Congenial spirits awaited him of both sexes, long known to him, and, flinging aside all the restraints he felt he had been bound by during the last year, he plunged into the wildest excesses. He was one of those men to whom such an outburst, even at very long intervals, seems a necessity of life—one that when the opportunity for obtaining it arrives can by no effort of will be refrained from, although it is hard to suppose that such an effort is ever made or attempted. And yet he could be, as far as abstention from vulgar vice was concerned, a very eremite for a year at a time, otherwise he would never have reached his present position; for the American shipowner—or, indeed, employer of any kind—is entirely intolerant of drunkenness or debauchery among his servants, and will have none of it if by any means he can prevent it. Now, however, his boat’s crew disposed of—allowed to run a little riot of their own among their cronies, and merely ordered to turn up in the morning at eight o’clock, bringing six recruits with them, he abandoned himself to the fierce delights of the Latin seaman when let loose.

But in spite of the long night’s excesses there was little alteration in his appearance or manner when he met his men in the morning, noting with high approval that they had succeeded in obtaining the new hands he wanted: six huge piratical-looking ruffians, three of whom were of that peculiar type of Portuguese which can only be found in the islands of the North-West Atlantic—men, that is, with the high-bred facial characteristics of the Portuguese allied to a perfect blackness of skin. Some of these men are of great size, and almost all of them know something about sperm-whaling, since all of these islands were for hundreds of years most prolific haunts of the cachalot. Therefore they have always been welcomed as recruits for whaleships, their undoubted courage and great powers of endurance adding to their desirability. But to Captain Da Silva they represented more than these advantages. They were his own countrymen, and might be relied upon to abet him in any scheme of devilry he might devise, in which he would certainly lack the support of his American officers. And a dim idea of vengeance upon those officers was certainly taking shape within his mind, which, once definitely arranged, he would spare no pains to carry out nor allow any peevish scruples to prevent him doing so.

With a few quiet words to the newcomers about pay, position, &c., also the time of meeting to make the engagement—a very simple matter in those ships—he gave them some money, and went his way to purchase three new whaleboats. In this he was also fortunate, for a local bay whaling company had just dissolved partnership, and all their gear was on sale. He succeeded in purchasing from the representative of the late company four boats and a large quantity of gear for less than half their ordinary value, which pleased him so much that he determined to stay another night ashore and continue his enjoyment. But first he made arrangements for his new purchases to be taken off to the ship. The only message he condescended to send was that the boat should return for him the next day at 10 A.M. And not an ounce of fresh meat or fruit or vegetables went off. These articles were cheap enough in all conscience, but Captain Da Silva never pampered his crew, especially this early in a long voyage, and, besides, there was punishment to be carried out. And no form of punishment on board ship as applied to a whole crew is more effective than to be anchored near a fruitful shore after months of bad salt food and be denied a taste of the delicious things they can almost see growing. Under ordinary conditions such a deprivation would be next to impossible, as there are always people along shore anxious to earn a little by catering for the needs of a ship’s company, except in the most savage lands. And if there be no money on board, barter can always be resorted to: quite a quantity of sweet potatoes, oranges, or bananas can be obtained for a shirt. The Captain, however, had arranged all that; according to his wishes not a boat had been near his ship. And, besides, she was a long way out.

When the officers saw the gear and boats, and received the message, they looked at each other significantly, but said no word. Mr. Court, now able to hobble about, took charge of operations, and in quite a short time the newly acquired boats had been placed in position, had each received a coat of white paint, that being the colour of the Grampus’s boats, their gear fitted to them, and everything made ready for their lowering to a whale. They came alongside at midday, and by nightfall were ready for use. During all this activity Priscilla had been quite forgotten. The officers felt doubtful how she would receive any information about her husband which, in answer to questions, they might have felt tempted to supply, so they did not mention the matter. Only the genial darkey steward, in the perfectly respectful yet familiar manner common to negro servants in America, chatted away to his mistress, and kept her from being too lonely or dwelling too much upon the unknown reasons which had induced her husband to leave her on board the ship for two days without giving her any information at all of his doings. Had she known it, she might have felt surprised that he had never so much as given her a thought. But she would hardly have been grieved at anything he did now to her, having fortified her mind against the worst that could befall.

Punctually at the time appointed the boat arrived at the place ordered by the Captain, who almost immediately appeared, and gave orders for the transhipment to the boat of a number of cases. Altogether they made a heavy cargo for such a frail boat; but whalers are most expert at this business, and effect transportation by means of these boats that seems impossible to any ordinary sailormen. This done they shoved off, Captain Da Silva standing erect in the stern, his eyes fixed upon his ship, and noting detail after detail as they became visible. A frown, never entirely absent from his handsome face, deepened upon it as he failed to see any cause for complaint. She looked beautifully trim; not a rope yarn out of its place, the weather-beaten patches on her side carefully touched up, the boats all bright with new paint, the three mastheads manned, and, as he came alongside, the mate at the gangway to receive him, and the crew all standing by the boat’s falls ready to hoist her up the moment he should step on board.

As he put his foot on the rail, Mr. Court said, ‘Good morning, sir.’ But instead of replying, the Captain said, ‘Whyn’t ye git under weigh?’ And without pausing for an answer shouted: ‘Man th’ windlass.’ The cry was re-echoed all over the ship, and almost immediately nothing could be heard for the clatter of the pawls as the big windlass barrel revolved at top speed. ‘Down frum aloft there an’ loose sail, courses, taups’les, an’ t’gallantsails,’ again shouted the Captain. ‘Lively naow; think yer goin’ t’ sit up thar an’ sleep while th’ ship’s gittin’ under weigh?’ Oh, he was a hustler, was Captain Da Silva. In ten minutes from the time he came on board the boat’s cargo was discharged, she was hoisted, the Grampus was under weigh, and pointing south for the resumption of the long and weary voyage. Then, and not till then, did the skipper condescend to say anything to his chief officer. He called him, and with a coldly sarcastic curl of his lip as he saw him hobbling aft on improvised crutches, he said, ‘Anythin’ t’ report?’ ‘No, sir,’ replied Mr. Court, ‘’cept thet I’ve returned t’ duty.’ ‘No need t’ report thet, anyhaow,’ growled the skipper; ‘I k’n use my eyes. But yew don’t look pretty, ’n thet’s a fact. Mout’s well hide yerself a bit longer, moutn’t ye? Hain’t gut tired doin’ nawthin’, I’m sure.’ ‘See here, Captain Da Silva,’ hissed the mate, ‘you’ve gut th’ whip hand now, I’ll own, but if ever I git on equal terms with ye, all this’ll hev t’ be settled fur.’ ‘Go, lie daown, dog,’ muttered the Captain. ‘I’ll attend t’ you an’ all th’ rest right along ’n’ git all th’ sleep I need too.’ And the Grampus began to rise and fall gently to the incoming swell as the Captain went below.

CHAPTER XIV

AMONG RIGHT WHALES

We left our hero Rube suffering in body but triumphant in soul, and also in perfect ignorance of the astounding change his behaviour was bringing about in all hands. I have always maintained that a Christian ship presents as near an approach to what most of us agree Heaven must be like as we can make on this side of the gate thereof. For look at the position! The grosser forms of temptation are entirely absent, yet there is none of the selfish side of monasticism present. Men talk and laugh and work with their fellows amid the most glorious of all earthly surroundings—the pure, wide, bright ocean. There is no monotony, since every day brings diversified duties, and in hours of rest not needed for sleep there is an ever-changing panorama of glory present to the newly awakened eyes, drawing ever-deepening thankfulness from the regenerated heart. The thousand-and-one miseries and pettinesses that distract men ashore are absent. From the little world evil has departed—almost the knowledge of it, since there is no daily paper recording the never-ending succession of crimes.

Yes, it is an ideal state of existence, a sort of Happy Valley in the midst of the ocean, whence the trail of the serpent has been removed, and where the community bask, unshadowed by sin, in the sunshine of God. Of course, it will be cynically remarked that this is a picture of perfection, unattainable, impossible. Well, it is nearly, but not quite. I have experienced something very near it, and I beg to submit that it was so idyllic that it could not be made a subject for cynical sarcasm, even by the editor of the Freethinker, if he only saw it in operation. It might be called right fruit of wrong belief; but I do not love paradoxes. I prefer to believe that men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.

But I am doing an injustice to Reuben and his shipmates by interpolating my own meditations in their story. When the work of realising the spoil of their first whale had been finished, all hands felt that they had now served their apprenticeship—were now fully equipped for their work on board, whatever it might be. And in their watches below the men found a wondrous fund of conversational matter in the happenings of the past few days. But whenever they approached the subject of Rube’s rescue of MacManus there was a perceptible lowering of the voice, an air of solemnity upon everybody, for they all felt that here was a man who, given opportunity, would have dived into hell itself if by so doing he might haply rescue a comrade. And that a comrade by no means specially dear to him, but just one of the many. The incident brought them a truer insight into the character of Christ than millions of sermons could have done. And in saying this I in no wise undervalue sermons. ‘It hath pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.’ But the living example of faith’s outcome, a far-off and feeble imitation of Christ, carries us beyond the reach of argument, makes the most sceptical silent. Against it the waves of criticism beat in vain. Logic, with all its perverseness; the scornful finger-pointing at the unfaithful professors; the cavilling of the sticklers for formulated creeds—all, all are silenced or stopped; and the splendour of Christ manifest in the flesh again, though it be but in the flesh of one of His humblest servants, overwhelms us.

But it must be confessed that Captain Hampden, even in the midst of his new-found peace of soul, had occasional fits of despondency when he realised how little progress the ship was making towards a prosperous voyage. Over six months had now elapsed and only one sperm-whale had been seen. Hope buoyed him, of course, but it was often deferred, and, consequently, though he maintained a cheery demeanour towards his officers his heart was becoming very sick. Going below into his lonely little cabin he would stand as if in deep thought, gazing into vacancy and wondering in some indefinite way how it was that he was so unfortunate this voyage. For he had the reputation of being a ‘lucky’ skipper who never stayed out all his legal time, and on several occasions so great had been his success that he had found no need to go out of the Atlantic Ocean. Twice, indeed, he had spent gloriously successful seasons on ‘Coffin’s Ground,’ just a little south and west of the English Channel, finding there sperm-whale, so numerous and fat that he was inclined to wonder why it should ever be necessary to go farther afield. I could not help thinking of him last year, when, on my way to the Mediterranean in one of the crack P. and O. liners, I heard the veteran captain tell a lady at dinner that there were hardly any whales now—they had been almost exterminated. I ventured to question his dictum, and we had rather an interesting discussion. But next morning he and I met on deck a little after daybreak, to find the ship gliding along at her usual seventeen knots through the midst of a school of sperm-whales of the largest size, extending to the horizon on both sides, and taking us an hour to get away from them.

Nothing of that kind, however, came in the way of the Xiphias. Day after day passed, lengthening into weeks, during which from the lofty eminence of the crow’s-nest nothing could be seen but sea and sky, an occasional barnacle-encrusted piece of drift-timber, a school of dolphin or bonito, a few porpoises, flying fish innumerable, and now and then a fin-back whale. But with the exception of the skipper nobody seemed to worry or find the life monotonous. Work went on with clock-like regularity, but outside of the work the men’s lives appeared to be full of interest. Interminable yarns, often inconsequential, were exchanged, and hardly a detail of their lives remained unrevealed to each other. Reuben’s return to active service was hailed with such delight that he did not appear to understand what it meant. He could not realise that the service he had rendered to his shipmate so readily could have taken such heroic proportions in the eyes of the crew. If he could have known, that great deed was, after all, but an incident: it was the lovely life, the splendid man in him which appealed to all hands, as, indeed, it will ever do where men are gathered together. Many complaints of lack of appreciation are heard from men of all classes, but the truth appears to be that with few exceptions men and women are marvellously generous in their appreciation of one another’s good deeds. There is, of course, a bogus hero-worship, an undiscriminating appreciation of work that only makes for evil, and consequently had far better be left undone, but it is only a virtue carried to excess. Let men or women do ever so little good work to-day, and, if it becomes known, their reward is almost certain to transcend their merits by far.

So Reuben, unconsciously as the sun shines or the birds sing, was made the means of sweetening the crew of the Xiphias, and keeping them sweet, and at the same time, as a consequence, was teaching them—teaching them how to teach themselves from the great book open around them lessons that would be the delight of their whole remaining lives. Meanwhile the Captain grew more and more irritable, moody, despondent. He still prayed, but listlessly, as if wondering what good it could do. And all this mental agony of his was just due to the lack of common-sense appreciation of the benefits conferred by the Gospel of Christ. What should we say of a parent, who, while ever ready to confer upon his children the best of advice, the best educational advantages possible, and who gave them promises of glorious prospects in the future, should yet keep them without the common necessaries of life, food and clothing—yes, not only keep them without, but hinder them from obtaining those things for themselves? Yet this is the idea which so many, the vast majority of orthodox Christians, have of the dear Father God. But the educational process, if of any value, is slow, and Captain Hampden was learning, unwillingly it is true, but still he was learning. At times, though, the content which seemed to possess all hands but himself was very trying to him. He naturally felt that his crew should in some measure share his anxiety over the non-success of the voyage so far, and resentment at their apparently callous conduct often made him miserable. Their behaviour was irreproachable. There was no slackness shown in any duty, and he knew that as far as the look-out was concerned not a fish could leap by day within a radius of four or five miles without being instantly noted by one or more of the six pairs of keen eyes at the mastheads.

But it was not until the old Xiphias had rolled her way eastward as far as Gough Island that payable whales were sighted again. Then when within about ten miles of that huge isolated crag rising solitary, awful, out of the vast waste of the Southern Ocean, a dubious cry of ‘Blo—o—o—w’ was heard from the fore crow’s-nest. It told plainly that the utterer was not at all sure whether what he was reporting was worth while troubling after. So many false alarms had been raised, rorquals, finbacks, grampuses had so often filled them with delusive hopes, that only the unmistakable bushy spout of a sperm-whale was looked for. Since, however, no chance, slight though it might be, was neglected, the warning was given, and was presently being repeated by all the other watchers. Captain Hampden rather listlessly mounted the rigging, his binoculars slung to his neck, and reaching the mainyard, focussed them upon the, as yet, far-off whales. One glance was enough. In a tremendous voice he roared his orders to come down from aloft, prepare to leave the ship, alter the course, &c. He had discovered that a school of ‘right’ whales was in sight: a species of cetacean, almost identical with the great Greenland whale, and because of the high value of the baleen, or whalebone found in the mouth, worth almost as much in those days as the sperm-whale in spite of the poor quality of ‘right’ whale oil—perhaps, when all the circumstances were taken into consideration, more, for even the Southern right whale, although certainly more elegant in figure and swifter in movement than his Northern congener, is a meek and gentle creature, in the chase of which an accident is almost unknown.

There were about twenty individuals in the school, of average size—that is to say, each looking as if he or she might yield eighty or ninety barrels of oil and seven or eight hundredweight of bone. I mix up the genders, for, curiously enough, while the sperm-whale cow never attains to much more than one-fourth of the size of the adult cachalot, the mysticetus, or right whale has little or no disparity between the size of the sexes; what difference does occur is usually in favour of the female. With great glee the skipper ordered all five boats away, leaving the ship in charge of the four petty officers and two men only; and having told each boat-header to do his level best to get fast to a whale for himself, and not interfere with any other boat’s quarry, also to make the best possible time down to where the whales awaited them all unconscious of their proximity, the chase began. Oars and sails were both used with such good effect that although the breeze was not strong the boats fairly flew over the darkened surface of the sea. It was in the mid-morning—about 10 A.M. and the sky was, as usual in those latitudes, on the edge of the roaring forties, overcast with a thick veil of grey clouds which shut out the sun as effectually as night. And when the sun goes the sea’s aspect is cold and cheerless even on the Line. Also, there rolled up from the west mighty knolls of water, the heaving of old ocean’s breast, which when they caught a boat, hurled her forwards as if she were flying, sometimes accurately balanced upon a gliding summit as if by the fingers of a juggling genie. Viewed from an independent standpoint, the enterprise of these seafarers would have looked like some forlorn hope whereof the prize was leave to live a little longer and the penalty death. But the men in those boats had no such thought. Their teeth clenched, their nostrils expanded, their eyes ablaze with excitement, they plied their oars, scorning fatigue, overcoming the ache in their bones by sheer will-power, and without a word or sign of encouragement save those which proceeded from their own fierce desire to do better than the fellows in the next boat. It was emulation unpaid, unfostered, raised to its highest power, and achieving far more than any hope of reward could have done.

With a wild yell of delight, the mate’s boat dashed into the centre of the school, and his harpooner’s weapon flew into the body of the nearest monster like a lightning flash. The other boats, spreading themselves fan-wise, came on the scene almost immediately, and then all the wild delight of the chase, all the romantic interest of the scene was for a season in abeyance. It was too sordid. The clean sea became a slaughter-house; the soul-sickening smell of blood permeated the air. The exuding oil from the wounds made the sea quite smooth, although, of course, the swell rolled high as ever. The bewildered victims, unable to fight or flee, rolled helplessly upon the surface, exposing their vitals to the deadly thrust of the long lances, and only by an occasional flap of their mighty tails did they show any sign of resentment or desire to escape. Happily it was soon over. Within half an hour from the time of attack and without the expenditure of one hundred fathoms of line, five whales lay dead upon the solemn sea. No boat was injured, no damage of any kind had been done. And round about the victims and their slayers quietly circled the still-living monsters as if by some horrible fascination held to the spot. The skipper gave orders that none of these apparently mourning ones should be molested—not, be it noted, because of any tenderness for them, but because the average sailor, and especially the whaler, is averse to taking life wantonly. Where profit is concerned blood flows like water—slay, slay, slay, insatiable apparently of slaughter; but kill for killing’s sake as some gentlemen do in a pheasant battue—no: the rude whalemen leave such practices to their betters.

The deadly work had been so well and swiftly done that, as the mate said figuratively, ‘a good-sized handkerchief would have covered ’em all.’ Making allowance for pardonable exaggeration, the whole of the five certainly lay within half a square mile, and, therefore, two boats were judged sufficient to attend to the needful tail-boring, &c., while the other three cut adrift and sped back to the fast approaching ship, all their crews in a state of wild delight at so successful an encounter, and feeling quite fresh, for really they had hardly got their second wind. Indeed, it was a busy day for them, although rendered much easier than it would otherwise have been by the exceptionally favourable circumstances. Still, even then the work of getting alongside and securing by the passing of fluke-chains five gigantic bodies like those was bound to be a heavy one in any case. However, it was successfully accomplished by eight bells, noon, and with a satisfied sigh of relief every man made his way below to as good a dinner as the circumstances would admit of.

A full hour was allowed the resting men for food and smoke, and then at the first cry of ‘Turn to!’ they all scurried on deck as if eager to get to work again. But a surprise awaited them. Instead of the tedious and terribly hard work which they had seen before of cutting off and splitting lengthways the head of the sperm-whale, now the clatter of the pawls was unceasing. Once the upper jaw of the right whale, with its valuable fringe of baleen, is lifted out, the rest of the work of ‘flenching,’ or skinning the blubber off the body of the whale, is just a pleasant piece of recreation. And here let me say that, whatever may be the practice in bay-whaling when the big body is stranded, it is utterly ridiculous to suppose, as so many readers of fiction do suppose, that men with spikes in their boots get down upon the whale’s back and hew slabs of blubber off his body, which they fling on deck. Such a feat would be utterly impossible, besides being most wasteful of time as well as spoil. For the ship and the whale roll and tumble about to such an extent that standing upon that rolling mass alongside is inconceivable. No: the great ‘cutting-tackles’ come into play, and once having a wide riband of blubber started off the whale’s neck the blubber is unwound as it were by continual hoisting, cutting at the still attached side, and the rolling round of the body.

The men all toiled as if fatigue were a word of no import, nor was a word spoken or needed to spur them on to greater efforts. They toiled until the deck, as well as the blubber-room, was packed from end to end with the mountainous masses of blubber and upper jaws with their wealth of bone. And as the last despoiled carcass was cut adrift the men raised a great shout of joy. It had been such a mighty task, so well and profitably performed, that their exultation was legitimate, and even praiseworthy. But the Captain, feeling the reaction from his great exertions, in a sense of almost overpowering lassitude, slowly dragged himself up on to the little deck aft to have a look round before going below for a meal and a short rest. And he saw a sight that drove the blood back to his heart, and left his extremities cold and numb. In the fury of labour no one had noticed the drift of the ship, nor indeed, the worsening of the weather. True, the sails had all, except the close-reefed main topsail and fore topmast staysail, been furled before beginning, so that the weather mattered little, but—the grim, towering mass of the island was close abeam to leeward. Like some vast cloud it loomed above them, while to windward, through the fast-gathering gloom of evening, came thundering on the rising, gleaming seas of the great Southern Ocean, precursors of the gale that would presently be here—nay, was already making its presence felt and heard.

For a few moments Captain Hampden stood and gazed irresolute. What could he do? With his deck so hampered by those vast greasy masses that movement fore and aft was well-nigh impossible, with night almost here, and crew worn out with the severe labour they had so cheerfully performed all day, what could he resolve upon? Like an inspiration came the thought, ‘Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,’ and baring his head he said, ‘O God, save us, don’t let us perish like this. Let us escape, please, Father, from this awful danger.’ In a moment his relaxing muscles stiffened, he stood erect, and with a voice that reached every corner of the ship he shouted, ‘Lay aloft and loose taups’les an’t’gallants’les. Drop everything, men, and get sail on her.’ There was a momentary hush as the crew took in his words, and then cheerful cries of response came back to him as the weary fellows realised that they were being called upon for a supreme effort. Slipping, clutching, fighting their way over the greasy masses, they scrambled aloft, and soon the white gleams above told of the loosened canvas, while the waiters below tailed on to the halyards and sheets, and in all kinds of apparently impossible attitudes among the slimy obstructions dragged the reluctant sails up again. By the time all possible sail was made there was another and a deeper note mingling with the voice of the storm—the deep roar of the great Atlantic rollers beating up against those aged barriers of rock. But to their amazement the crew felt the vessel’s motion ease. She had been rolling heavily, labouring under the immense upper weight as if bewildered by it and hardly knowing what to do. And now she hardly moved at all, while overside the whole sea seemed smoothed down and ablaze with phosphorescent light. Even the veteran officers were puzzled, until the Captain suddenly bethought him of the gigantic seaweed that in fronds of hundreds of feet in length, and the thickness of a man’s body, grows upward to the surface in those waters all around the bases of the island mountains. But was there any protection there? True, the sea had become smooth, but the ship’s way had also deadened so that she no longer forged ahead, while it was impossible to ascertain in any way whether or not she was drifting broadside on over the heads of the kelp towards the stern precipices to leeward. The night was now so dark that in spite of the proximity of the mountain to leeward it was impossible to distinguish between one side and the other. Only the ear could tell by that deep moan of the sea against the rock bases.