THE RIGHT WHALE’S FLUKES

’Ware th’ sparm whale’s jaw,

an’ th’ right whale’s flukes!

—_Old Whaling Maxim_.

In the old whaling museum on Johnny Cake Hill there is a big room with a

fireplace where, on a rainy or stormy day, the whaling captains like to

gather; and when storms or cold keep him from his rocking chair on the

after deck of his Fannie, Cap’n Mark Brackett climbs the hill to the old

museum and establishes himself in a chair before the fire. From the

windows you may look down a short, steep street to the piers where great

heaps of empty oil casks, brown with the grime of years of service, block

the way. Tied up to the piers there may be an old square-rigger, her top

hamper removed, and empty so that she rides high in the water and

curtsies to every gust; and you will see squat little auxiliary schooners

preparing for the summer’s cruising off Hatteras; and beyond these the

eye reaches across the lovely harbor to Fair Haven, gleaming in the sun.

The old museum is rich with the treasures of the sea, and this room where

the captains like to gather is the central treasure house. An enormous

old secretary of mahogany veneer stands against one wall, and in cases

about the room you will find old ship’s papers bearing the names of

presidents a hundred years dead, pie crimpers carved from the solid heart

of a whale’s tooth, a little chest made by one of the Pitcairn Island

mutineers, canes fashioned from a shark’s backbone or the jawbone of the

cachalot, enormous old locks, half a dozen careful models of whaling

craft with the last rope and spar in place, and the famous English

frigate, in its glass case at one side.

I found Cap’n Brackett there one afternoon, in an old chair before the

fire, his black pipe humming like a kettle, his stout body relaxed in

comfortable ease. He had advised me to read “Moby Dick,” and had loaned

me the book; and when I entered, he looked up, a welcoming twinkle in the

keen old eyes that lurk behind their ambush of leathery wrinkles, and saw

the book in my hand.

“Read it?” he asked, between puffs.

“End to end,” I assured him.

“A great book. A classic, I say.”

I nodded, and drew up a chair beside him, and opened the volume to glance

again across its pages and to dip here and there into that splendid

chronicle of the hunt for the great white whale. The old man watched me

over his pipe, and I looked up once and caught his eye.

“He’s stretching it a bit, of course,” I suggested. “You would never

meet the same whale twice, in all the wastes of the Seven Seas.”

The cap’n’s eyes gleamed faintly. “Why not?” he asked.

“It’s too much of a coincidence.”

“It happens.”

One certain method to provoke Cap’n Brackett to narration is to pretend

incredulity. I smiled in a wary fashion, and said nothing.

“There was one whale I saw four times, myself,” he asserted.

“How do you know it was the same?”

“He was marked. . . . And the hand of Fate was in it, too.”

I turned the leaves of the book, and chuckled provokingly, watching

covertly the captain’s countenance; and, as I expected, he began

presently to tell the story that was in his mind. His gruff old voice

ran quietly along; the fire puffed and flared as the wind whistled down

the chimney, the snow flurried past the windows and hid the harbor below

us. Cap’n Brackett’s voice droned on.

“You never heard of Eric Scarf,” the old man thoughtfully began. “Not

more’n three or four men alive now that knew him. He were mate of the

Thomas Pownal when I knew him; a big, straight, fiery man, powerful and

strong. He came of some Northland breed, with a great shock of yellow

hair, and eyes as blue as the sea; but he was not like most Norsemen in

being slow of speech and dull of wit. Quick he was; quick to speak, and

quick to think, and quick to act; quick to anger, quick to take hurt, and

quick to know Joan for the one woman, when she began that v’y’ge on the

Thomas Pownal.

“James Tobbey was the captain of the Pownal; Joan was his daughter. She

was a laughing girl, always laughing; a child. Her hair was fine-spun

and golden, and it curled. When the fog got into it, it kinked into

ringlets as crisp as blubber scraps. You wanted to rub them in your

hands, and hear them crinkle and crackle between your palms. And her

voice, when she laughed, was the same way, crisp and clean and strong;

and her eyes were brown. Give a girl light curly hair and dark brown

eyes, and any man’s heart will skip a beat or so at seeing her.

“She used to be everywhere about the ship, always laughing; and little

Jem Marvel forever hobbling at her heels. Jem was a baby, a little

crippled baby, the son of a sister of Joan’s who had died when Jem was

born; and Jem’s father was dead before that, although no one knew it till

the Andrew Thomes came back without him, two years after.

“Thomes had been a hard, bitter man; and little Jem took after him. The

baby was black—black hair, black eyes, a swart skin; and when he dragged

his withered leg about the deck at Joan’s heels, his face worked and

grimaced with spleen that was terrible to watch. Maybe six or seven he

was then; and for all Joan tended him like a mother, I’ve known him to

rip out at her black oaths that would rot a grown man’s lips.

“Cap’n Tobbey kept his eyes away from the boy; but Joan loved the little

thing. None but her could bear with him.

“Eric Scarf was the only man aboard that ever tried to win the baby.

I’ve seen him work for weeks at some dinkus he was making for the boy,

only to have Jem scorn it when it was done. He put six months of

whittling into a little model of the Pownal, with every rope in place;

and when he gave it to Jem at last, the boy smashed it on the deck, and

stamped upon the splinters.

“Eric but laughed. The mate was a hard man with men, quick with them;

but with the child he was as gentle as Joan herself.

“He loved Joan. I loved Joan. Every man aboard the Pownal loved the

girl; but Eric more than most of us. He sought ways to please her, and

when he bungled it, it was a fight with him to hide his grief. One of

the greenies, when the Pownal was but a few days out, bumped against the

girl in the waist of the ship at the lurch of a wave; and Eric knocked

the man halfway to the fo’c’s’le scuttle with one cuff. But while the

greenie was scrambling to his feet, nursing his mouth with one tooth

gone, Joan flamed at Eric.

“‘Why was that?’ she demanded, her voice very steady and hot.

“‘He bumped you!’ Eric tells her.

“‘I did not complain. Only a coward hits men who cannot hit back.’

“Eric’s face crimsoned; he whirled to the man. ‘Here,’ he shouted.

‘Forget I’m the mate. Do you want the chance to get even?’

“The man stared affrightedly, then ducked down the scuttle like a rabbit,

with Eric glaring after him. But when Eric turned, Joan had gone aft

without another word, and he was left to grope for understanding of her.

“Scarf was the strongest, quickest man I ever saw. He was tall and

powerful, and built slim and flat like a whalebone spring. He was

boiling with his own strength all the time. He suffered for a vent for

it; and he trod the deck on his toes like a tiger, his fists swinging,

not from any lust for battle so much as from the excess of his own power

and vigor.

“I’ve seen him set his hands to tackle, and brush the fo’mast hands

aside, and do three men’s work himself for the mere peace and joy it gave

him to put forth all his strength for a space; his shoulders and back and

arms would knot and swell and bulge with his efforts, and his lungs would

shout with gladness at the task.

“Eric was never still. On deck, where others would lean against the rail

with an eye to the ship and their thoughts somewhere off across the

water, he was always moving, pacing up and down, climbing into the

rigging, shifting this and stirring that, restless like a caged beast.

Something drove him. He could not rest. The springs of life and energy

in the man would have torn him to bits if you had held him motionless for

an hour. He had to move, to act, to do; and when he buffeted the men, it

was neither native cruelty nor bullying. It was but the outburst of his

own impatient, restless power.

“It was a strange thing to see such a man gentling little Jem Marvel, or

wooing the boy to a romp about the deck; and it was strange to see Scarf

stand near Joan, watching her, and the muscles in him twitching and

straining with the agony of inaction. Eric worshipped Joan; and she

bewildered him. He used to plan little pleasant surprises for her, and

watch her joy at them and take his reward in watching. He never spoke

love to her, never so much as touched her hand unless it might be to help

her along the deck when the ship was wallowing; and when the things he

planned failed to delight her, a man watching him could see that his very

soul was writhing.

“I said Scarf was a quick man, quick of thought and quick of deed. But

where Joan was concerned, he was very dull and slow. He never could

learn, try as he would, to please her; and his own impotence and his

strength combined to drive him to feats which he meant for wooing, but

which the girl abhorred.

“He trapped a little sea bird once, and made a tiny cage for it, and left

it for her to find; and when the girl discovered it, she cried out with

pity for the captive, and ran on deck with the cage and set the little

creature free. Eric Scarf saw her, and she knew it was he who had done

it, and pitied him.

“‘I’m really grateful,’ she said, smiling very gently at the big man,

‘but he is so unhappy in a cage.’

“Eric tried to speak, and saw one of the men by the tryworks grinning at

him; so he went forward and drove the man with blows to the knight’s

heads, and Joan scorned him for days thereafter.

“I’ve seen a cock pa’tridge ruffle his feathers and beat and drum with

his wings, all glory and strength and vigor in his wooing; and no doubt

the hen liked it. But if the pa’tridge had tried such measures in the

courting of a singing thrush, he would only have frighted and dismayed

her whom he sought to please. It was so with Eric. His courting would

have pleased some women; Joan it but disgusted and disturbed.

“‘Eric Scarf and I were closer friends than you would think; and I knew

the big, strong man to be as shy and as easy to take hurt as a child.

But it was his way when he was hurt or shamed to strike out at the

nearest, and so to those without understanding he seemed a mere bully,

cruel and exultant in his strength.

“Lucky for us on the Pownal, Scarf delighted in the whaling. There was

no other task in the world so fitted to the man. So strong he was that

nothing short of a whale could give him the fierce joy of battle which

soothed him. He drove his men as he drove himself, and they either broke

under it or became hard-bitten and enduring hands, fit to match him. His

boat was always first away; and he would strike and kill one whale and

then another while other officers were content with a single catch. I’ve

known him to do what few attempt: to lower at night when moonlight

revealed a spout, and make his kill, and tow the fish to the ship by

dawn. Cap’n Tobbey never interfered with Eric, for the mate was too

valuable; and when the mate’s watch was on deck, he would lower and kill

without ever calling the Old Man from his cabin at all.

“I had heard of Scarf before this v’y’ge, but never watched him work

before; and many a time I found myself biting my lip and holding the

breath in my chest at the daring of him. In any weather short of a gale,

he would lower; and once two boats were swamped in lowering before he

took the third mate’s and got away—and got the whale.

“With such an officer, and decent luck, a quick voyage was sure; and so

it was this time. Before we’d been out two years, the casks were filled,

oil was stored in everything that would hold it, and the Old Man gave the

word to fly the Blue Peter and put for home. We threw the bricks of the

tryworks overboard to lighten ship that much, and struck across the South

Pacific, fought our way around the Horn, and took a long slant north’ard

toward Tristan.

“There was no place to store more oil if we had it, and we could not try

out if we had the blubber; so, though we sighted fish now and then, we

let them go—though I could see Eric was fretting at it, and wishing the

ship empty again.

“For months now, Eric had been wooing Joan in his own wild, longing way;

but the girl would have none of him. He must have known it, and he

bridled his tongue as he could. But the word was bound to come some day;

and it came at last when we were rocking in a calm, with an island two or

three miles to starboard, and the sun hissing on the sea that sighed and

swelled like the bosom of a sleeping woman whose dreams are troubled and

disturbed.

“The ship was idle, the men squatting forward in what shade they could

discover, and the rigging slatting back and forth as the Pownal rocked on

the long swells. Eric had the deck, the Old Man was asleep below, and

Joan and the boy, Jem, were sitting aft, the girl sewing at something she

held in her lap.

“Scarf, with nothing in the world to do, fretted and paced about, his

eyes never leaving her, and a worship in them that all the world could

see. The afternoon droned away, the Pownal creaked and swung in the

cradle of the sea, and the sun burned down endlessly. Scarf could not

bear it. He strode across to where the girl sat; and she looked up at

him to see what he had come for, and at the look in his eyes rose quickly

to face him, her face setting hard.

“Eric must have seen; but he blundered blindly on. The words came

awkwardly. He lifted no hand to touch her. ‘I love you. I love you,’

he said, in a dry, husky voice. ‘I love you. I want you to marry me.’

“Black little Jem looked up at them and, with the quick perception of the

child, grinned malignantly. Joan’s face turned white beneath the soft

bronze the sun and wind had given her cheeks. She could not help pitying

the big man; but she could not love him.

“‘I’m sorry, Eric,’ she said. ‘I do not love you.’

“‘I love you,’ he repeated, as though it were an argument he were

advancing.

“‘I’m sorry,’ she told him again. ‘I’m sorry to hurt you. I don’t want

to hurt you. But I don’t love you.’

“His eyes were quivering and trembling like the raw flesh of a wound, but

he stood impassively before her, staring down into her eyes, searching

there for something he would never find. Little Jem chuckled, and the

sound broke the spell upon the man. He turned rigidly away; and as it

always was with him when his heart was torn, his great body clamored for

action. His fingers bit at his palms.

“And then one of the boat steerers, standing in the waist, uttered a low

ejaculation; and Eric turned and saw the man was pointing toward the

shore, where a misty spout was just dissolving against the dark

background of the cliffs that dipped to the water there.

“It was the vent Eric wanted for the torment that was tearing him.

Without a word, he leaped to his boat; and his men, well trained, came

tumbling at his heels. In a minute’s time, Eric had caught up some gear

that had been removed from the boats when the fishing was finished, and

gave the order to lower.

“Joan came softly to him. ‘You are not going to kill the whale, are

you?’ she asked. ‘We have no need for it.’

“Eric did not hear her; for the boat had split the water and was bobbing

there below him, and he dropped with his men and in a moment was away.

Joan, her eyes burning angrily, watched him go; and presently she brought

the glass to see what was to come.

“The whale inshore was lying quietly, but Eric sent the boat along as

though his life hung on success. He drove the men till the oars bent

like whip-shafts; he drove them and he drove himself; and they ran fair

upon the creature before they realized their speed. Then, at Eric’s cry,

the boat steerer in the bow leaped up and drove the harpoons home, and

the boat sheered off while Eric changed places with the man.

“They had struck a cow whale, a right whale, with a calf not a week old

tucked under her fin; and the little thing lay there, lifting its tiny

spout against its mother’s side, its fins feebly fanning.

“A cow whale is the easiest of game; and there is no sentiment in the

whaling ships. If the Pownal had been empty, she would have been counted

clear gain. With the Pownal full to brimming, this that Eric was doing

was mere murderous slaughter.

“When Eric saw that he was cheated of the battle he had craved, a fury

seized him. He shouted hoarsely to his boat steerer, and the man swung

them in alongside the whale. The great mother had not stirred, save for

a trembling shudder of her whole bulk when the irons seized upon her.

The calf was fighting to escape, but the mother’s great fin pinioned it

against her side, soothingly, assuringly, as though she promised it

should be safe there.

“Eric lifted his lance and pierced the mother, driving home the steel for

six feet into the great body; and he withdrew it, and prodded the vitals

of the whale again and again, with a desperate energy, pouring out the

fire of his own strength in his efforts.

“It was like piercing butter with a hatpin; and this dull acquiescence on

the creature’s part only whetted Eric’s blind rage. When at the last the

great flukes lifted once, his heart leaped with the hope that at the end

there might come the struggle and the opposition for which he hungered;

but agony had lifted the flukes, and the bursting heart of the mother

brought them gently down again, never even disturbing the little creature

at her side.

“She died; a thrust killed the calf. The boat sheered out; and then the

boat steerer shouted a warning from the stern.

“Eric whirled and saw a great bull whale just emerging from the depths;

and the whale headed for them furiously.

“I do not say the creature was the dead cow’s mate. It would not be

strange if this were so; but it need not be asserted. I do not say the

bull attacked the boat. He was badly gallied, he was running blindly.

“But whatever the explanation, he charged them; and Eric shouted

triumphantly at thought that here was the adversary he had desired.

“The boat steerer swung the boat about to meet the onrush; and Eric

snatched a harpoon. They swerved out of the path of the bull. As he

roared past them in a smother of foam, Eric sent the harpoon home.

“But next instant the smashing flukes struck them, and the boat’s whole

bottom was driven away. Eric chopped the loose line in time to save

them; and in ten seconds from the appearance of the bull, they were to

their necks in water, the boat beneath them.

“The bull charged on and disappeared. I lowered and went after the men

in the water; and we got them aboard. Eric was reacting from his fury

now; he was shamed at what he had done; and he looked back once to the

body of the cow, about which sharks were already fighting, with something

like apology in his eyes.

“The men were talking. ‘Did ye see the cross on the bull’s head?’ the

tub oarsman asked; the steerer assented.

“‘A white scar in the blubber,’ he agreed.

“The others nodded; and Eric looked at me and said quietly: ‘The old bull

was marked.’

“It was when we were all aboard again, and Eric had changed to dry

garments, that Joan came up to where he stood with me. Her eyes were

blazing; and little Jem, at her heels, was chuckling blackly.

“‘That was murder,’ said the girl, trembling with her own anger.

“Eric flushed, and his head bowed a little.

“‘A cow and a calf—killed uselessly!’ Joan exclaimed.

“The big man, uneasy, shy, not knowing where to turn, saw little Jem

beside him; and he turned to the boy and caught the lad under his arms,

and swung him high in the air. ‘Up you go!’ he cried, trying to laugh.

“He meant only to start a romp—anything to divert the girl’s searing

scorn; but the malignant spirit of little Jem converted the movement into

black tragedy. The child screamed indignantly, and kicked down at Eric’s

upturned face with his sound foot.

“Eric was standing a yard from the rail, his back to it. The kick in his

face made him lose his balance, and he staggered backward, and before I

could stir, with the boy extended above his head, he had fallen

overboard.

“Joan screamed; and together we leaped to the rail. I reached for a coil

of rope. The two had sunk in a smother of bubbles; and in the second

that we waited for Eric to fight his way to the surface again, a sinister

shadow shot like fire along the ship’s side, and I saw the flicker of a

silver-white belly, and heard Joan scream again.

“The water turned crimson; and then Eric came to the surface with empty

hands. He dove instantly, furiously; and I got a boat into the water.

Eric broke to the surface again, his face convulsed with the anguish that

tore him; and two of us grabbed him and dragged him, fighting, into the

boat.

“‘Let go, let go,’ he screamed, and struck us back. ‘Let me go. I can

get him.’

“He was mad; and we caught him, and he broke and dropped, sobbing, in the

bottom of the boat. I saw that one of his arms was rasped raw by the

shark’s rough skin.

“Joan met him like a fury when he stepped upon the deck again, and I

thought she would strike him. He stood before her, drooping and crushed;

and the girl caught herself. But I heard the word she said.

“‘Thrice murderer!’ she told him softly. ‘Thrice murderer! A mother and

child—and now my baby! Oh curse you, curse you! May you be always

accursed until you die!’

“She held him for a moment, and then turned away from the man; and Eric

Scarf drooped sick and weak where he stood, until I dragged him below to

tend his wounded arm.”

The old man paused, and stared into the fire; and when I had waited

fruitlessly for another word from him, I asked:

“Is that all?”

He looked up at me quietly. “No,” he said. “No—that is not the whole of

it.”

Still he did not continue, and so I prompted him. “You said the whale

was seen four times,” I suggested.

He nodded; and so drifted into his story again. “Aye, four times,” he

agreed. “The old bull with the cross upon his skull. Four times. I’ve

but told the first.”

He puffed silently for a little, shifted his great bulk in the chair,

rose and crossed to the window to look down toward the harbor, and

returned at last to me.

“Joan kept to her cabin much, from that day,” he said. “She kept to her

cabin; and Eric Scarf did his tasks and held aloof from her. We came

smoothly northward, and presently were at our pier, unloading the casks

that filled our holds. Eric had slowly recovered something of the old

strength and power that moved him; and though he avoided the girl, and

though I could see how he suffered and what agony he was enduring, he

kept a steady face to the men, and drove them as he always drove.

“Cap’n Tobbey was a quiet, stern man; but he was just. He blamed Eric

for taking out the boat, but he knew the other for what it was, an

accident of Fate; and when time came for the next cruise, Eric was too

good a man to stay ashore. He shipped as mate, and I was second mate

again.

“This time, Joan stayed behind. She had had enough of the sea for a

lifetime, she told me; and from a girl, she was become a woman. Lovely

as ever, her laughter as sweet and crisp as a spring wind, yet there was

a depth in her that had not been there before, and at times her eyes

shrank as though they gazed upon awful, tragic happenings.

“She was on the pier the day we sailed; and I saw Eric Scarf watching her

with the hopeless longing in his eyes that tears at the vitals of a man.

“There was a shadow over the mate from the beginning of that cruise. Any

man could see it; and the fo’mast hands used to watch him, and whisper

among themselves. Outwardly he was the same; strong and quick and proud,

alive, alert, his body uplifted with the energy it housed. He trod the

decks lightly, he moved with the quick precision of an animal; and he

plunged into his work in a fashion that would have worn another man to

threads.

“A sprinkling of our old crew was aboard; so Eric’s story was no secret.

But it was never mentioned by him or in his presence. He seemed to find

a joy in his toil that allowed him to forget; and the man’s eyes

brightened and his cheeks set in their old firm, fine lines as we drove

southward. There is no better index to a man than the cheeks of him.

Flabbiness of body or soul shows quickest there, and there all other

vices and all virtues first appear. Eric’s face was neither gaunt nor

round, but it had a chiseled perfection of contour that was like a song.

“There is a deal of superstition that hangs about the sea; and a whaler

has her share of it, and more. But it is never allowed to interfere with

the work at hand. And so if the men wished Eric off the ship, they kept

their wishes to themselves; and if they were reluctant to serve in his

boat, they hid this reluctance. For Eric was a quick man, quick to

anger, with a quick fist to him. In his place, I should have moved

tremblingly, fearful of a blow from behind during the watch on deck at

night. But Eric strode fearlessly about the ship; and none laid hand to

him.

“The sea is a grim thing, and inscrutable. No man can look out across

its smooth bosom day and day, and remember the vast multitude of lives

which go their way beneath that smiling surface, without a sense of the

mystery and wonder of it all. The sea in a storm may be terrible and

appalling, when its broad expanse is cut up into myriad gulleys and

mountains in which the ship is lost as in a labyrinth; but to me it has

always been even more terrible and menacing when it is calm. In time of

storm, its fury rages without curb; the worst is with you. But when the

sea is quiet, all its energies hidden, it is like the smiling mask of

Fate which conceals unguessed and unpredicted blows.

“Thus, when we sailed southward over smooth and smiling seas, I fell

victim to unrest that harassed me. I rose and looked abroad each day

with eyes that searched eagerly for a threat of the fate that seemed

impending; and even as I watched the sea, in like manner did I watch Eric

Scarf, to discover if I could what it was that hung so threateningly over

the man’s smiling head.

“If Eric felt any uneasiness, he gave no sign at first. He was as he had

always been, confident, and quick, and strong. But the day came when a

hint was given us, just as the impalpable atmospheric changes reveal

through the glass the approach of storm.

“We had sighted whales more than once, and made a fair beginning on the

long task ahead of us; and then one day in the South Atlantic, the boats

were lowered for a pod that lay far off to southward. Eric got fast, and

the third mate likewise. But the whale I had chosen as my goal took

alarm, and whirled toward us, and then fled before our irons could reach

him.

“There had been time, however, for us to see upon his head a dull scar,

in the form of a cross, and I heard a cry from Eric’s boat, that was just

getting fast, and turned to see Eric staring toward the spot where the

old bull had disappeared.

“Then I remembered what the men had said about the whale which had stove

Eric’s boat after the kill on the other voyage; and when we were aboard

again, the cutting-in done, and the tryworks boiling and smoking, I was

not surprised that Eric came to me.

“‘Mark,’ he whispered huskily, ‘was there a cross on the bull that got

away?’

“I nodded. ‘On his head.’ I said. ‘An old scar, gouged into the

blubber.’

“I saw his jaw set hard. ‘It can’t be!’ he exclaimed, half to himself.

I said nothing; and he looked at me a moment later, with an agony of

doubt in his eyes.

“‘Well, what of it. Eric?’ I asked, knowing, but thinking that to talk

might ease the man.

“‘It was a scarred bull stove my boat—that day,’ he told me.

“‘Every old bull has his scars,’ I said easily.

“‘Aye—but—this was the same, Mark!’

“‘What matter?’

“He flushed and stammered like a child. ‘Her curse is on me,’ he

declared. ‘The old bull is going to wait for me!’

“‘He’ll suffer by it,’ I laughed. ‘He’s a fat old duke, too.’

“Eric looked forward where the men were working, and looked aft, and then

out across the sea; and then he looked at me at last with an appeal in

his eyes. ‘Are you calling me “murderer” as she did, Mark?’ he asked.

“I shook my head. ‘She’s but a girl,’ I told him. ‘There was no need of

killing the cow. But what matter for that? And the other—was no one’s

blame.’

“His hand gripped my arm till I winced. ‘You mean it?’ he begged,

hungrily.

“I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Forget it all,’ I urged. ‘No harm will

come.’

“‘It is not that I’m afraid,’ he told me swiftly; and I saw that I had

roused him as I hoped to do.

“‘Sure of that?’ I asked.

“His eyes flamed. ‘I fear nothing, except myself,’ he exclaimed. ‘But I

hear her word always; and I cannot bear it, Mark.’

“Before more could be said, Cap’n Tobbey came toward us; and Eric laughed

as though at some jest of mine. His laughter was not a pleasant thing to

hear, and I would have wished to reassure the man. But thereafter he

gave me no further opportunity.

“I could see the thing was on his mind through the days that followed.

He could not forget it; and he took to standing watch at the masthead

when there was no need. I asked him once why he did this.

“‘To get the scarred bull, Mark,’ he told me. ‘That will end it.’

“‘You’ll never see him again!’

“He shook his head, and smiled grimly. ‘No fear,’ he said. ‘He’s about

us.’

“And Eric was right; for the day we were finishing the trying out, the

scarred bull was sighted again, this time so near the ship that his mark

could be discerned through the glass as he rose to spout. Eric was

aloft; and he tumbled down the rigging like a madman, and lowered; but

there was a fog, and in the fog the bull was lost for that time.

“That was thrice he had been seen; and the fourth time came swiftly.

“Eric was never a man to fear or avoid conflict, even with the forces of

the universe itself; and after this third appearance of the scarred bull

whale, he scarce slept at all, but held himself and his boat’s crew ready

for battle the day long. He was aloft from dawn till dark, endlessly

scouring the seas for a spout that would reveal the creature which

personified to him the thing he was fighting. He became silent,

thoughtful; and strength flowed into him and nerved him to a hard and

efficient readiness. He was like an athlete in training for a contest,

every nerve and muscle tuned.

“We sighted the scarred whale for the fourth time on a Sunday morning; a

day when the sea was just rippled by the gentlest breezes, when the sun

shone warmly and comfortingly upon the world, when the boats danced upon

the waves with a soothing and caressing motion. The water was blue as

turquoise, and the sky above it; and the two met at the horizon with the

sea’s deeper blue below the sky’s, and the whitecaps gleaming like silver

in the wind.

“It was not Eric who sighted the whale, but one of the men on the

fore-t’gallant crosstrees; and his long ‘Blo-o-o-o-o-ow’ came droning

down to us on the decks and snatched each one to his post like machinery.

Cap’n Tobbey turned his glass on the distant spouts, and ordered the

boats away; and Eric’s hard and seasoned men made his boat swing ahead of

the others instantly, and steadily increase the lead.

“There was no way of knowing whether or no this was the old scarred bull;

but his spout told us it was a right whale, and not a sperm whale.

Nevertheless, either Eric knew it was his enemy he went to meet, or else

he was eager to discover whether it was or no, for he drove his men

unsparingly, and was more than a quarter of a mile ahead of us when he

reached the monster, and ran alongside.

“Over the water came to us the sound of his shouted command: ‘Let ’im

have it!’ And I saw the boat steerer, standing in the bow with his knee

in the clumsy-cleat, put all the strength of back and arms into the

stroke, and snatch the second iron and send that home even as the whale

leaped forward.

“While Eric and the boat steerer were changing places, the great whale

up-ended ponderously, his flukes lifting gently toward the sky full

thirty feet clear of the water, and slid down out of sight. He had

sounded; and I spurred my men to harder efforts so that we might be at

hand to help if need arose.

“Ahead of us, the boat lay idle on the waves. I could see Eric in the

bow, his hand on the line where it ran through the notch, bending to peer

down into the depths; and I could see he was putting a strain upon the

line, for the bow was down and almost dipping in the waves.

“Then suddenly the bow bobbed up, the strain relaxed; and Eric bent

further over in an effort to pierce the depths below him. The whale was

coming up; and if by chance he came up under the boat, the fight would be

done, forthwith. Eric shouted a command; and the men began to haul in

the line desperately, dropping it in a loose coil astern. The boat

steerer leaned upon his long oar, alert, bending to hear the word from

Eric, and himself looking overside for any sign of the monster who was

rushing up from the depths toward them.

“Then a shout from Eric, the boat swung around as though on a pivot; and

next instant the whale breached between his boat and mine.

“There is no more splendid sight in the world than this; to see the

biggest creature that breathes flinging his four or five score tons clear

out of the water to hang, a black bulk against the sky, for an instant

before he falls resoundingly. Imagine a leaping trout, magnify the

trout’s size a million-fold or more, and you have some faint notion of

the monstrous majesty and grace of the breaching whale.

“I had seen whales breach before, sometimes with terror, sometimes with

wonder at the beauty of the spectacle; but when this whale leaped clear

into the sky and seemed to hang for an instant fair above us, a thrill of

horror shot through me.

“For as he was in the air, fair for all to see, the scar upon his head

was revealed; a scar like a sunken cross, mark of some ancient wound. It

was the scarred bull to which Eric’s boat was fast.

“I looked toward him, and saw that Eric had seen the scar; but Eric loved

battle. He shouted to his men, and even as the great whale fell into the

water again, Eric’s men hauled in till they were alongside the monster,

and Eric drove home his lance.

“The whale, at the prick of steel, redoubled the furious struggle of the

breach; and he rolled away and away from the boat, upon the surface, in a

smother of foam and spray. The men were forced to loose the line again

to avoid capsizing; but Eric himself set his hand to it, and by his own

strength held the nose of the boat so near the rolling whale that when

the enormous creature straightened out at last to run, half a dozen pulls

brought them again alongside.

“They were in some fashion safer there than elsewhere. The harpoons had

struck well behind the fin, and the whale’s rolling had wrapped the line

about him in such fashion that when the boat pulled alongside it lay

safely behind the fin, and yet safely forward of the flukes. If the

whale rolled toward them, they would be crushed beneath his bulk; but

short of such a move, the monster could not shake them off.

“And Eric was working his lance like mad. I had never seen such frantic

energy. He sent the six-foot steel to its length into the soft body

again and again, not with a long shove, but with a single stabbing thrust

to each attack. His target was the whale’s greatest girth, and the lower

part of the body; and although the battle seemed an endless flurry and

strife of bloody foam, it was only a matter of seconds before the whale’s

labored spouting crimsoned—sure sign he had received a mortal wound.

“I caught the sound of an exultant shout from Eric, and his boat sheered

away. The monster had suddenly halted in its flight; it lay momentarily

motionless, as though testing its own strength against this attack which

had pierced its vitals. Then in a desperate and panic stricken flurry it

leaped forward and away, the boat, with line running free, trailing

safely behind.

“They drove past where my boat lay; and Eric turned to look toward me.

He was a heroic figure in the bow of the little craft, erect and tall,

his bright hair and his naked torso crimson with the flood from the

whale’s bloody spout. He was gleaming wet with spray and red foam; and

he waved his long lance as he passed and shouted:

“‘The scarred whale, Mark! I’ve killed him!’

“Before I could reply, he was beyond the sound of my voice; and then the

great beast whirled and came back toward us. He must have seen my boat

and supposed it that of his tormentor; for he charged at us, and only the

swiftest swerve took us out of his path in time. Beyond me, I saw him

wallow over the third mate’s boat and on; and I hurried to pick up the

men in the water.

“Save for their bruises and their drenching, they were uninjured. We

dragged them aboard, set a waif in the boat, tied its oars to keep it

afloat, and set out after Eric and the whale. The great creature was

circling in its last flurry; and as we drew near, with a tremendous spasm

it threw its mighty bulk in a swift, short circle, and was still.

“We drove ahead, toward Eric’s boat; and Eric’s countenance was burning

with a splendid triumph. This last moment of victorious pride Fate

allowed him.

“He was ahead; his boat ran alongside the huge carcass, and Eric bent

over the bow with the short boat spade to cut a hole in the whale’s tail

for towing it to the ship.

“The boat spade is a steel blade, razor sharp, spade-shaped, attached to

a stout wooden handle. Eric leaned far out and drove it into the tough

fiber of the tail.

“And then the right whale’s flukes whirled in a last, spasmodic struggle;

up they whirled, and over, and down. They missed the boat by inches; but

from Eric’s strong hands the boat spade was torn. It twisted in the air,

its steel blade flashing crimson. Under the blow of the flukes it

twisted and sang, and then chocked home. The steel struck Eric squarely

in the face; and it split his skull as you split a walnut.”

The old captain leaned forward to knock the dottel from his pipe upon the

andirons, and settled in his chair again. For a little time we sat

without speaking; but I asked at last:

“Joan—did she forgive him in the end?”

Cap’n Brackett’s grim old countenance softened. “Oh, aye,” he said.

“She’d forgiven him before. She warned me when we started on the cruise

to watch over him.” He filled and lighted his ancient pipe again, then

softly finished: “She’s gone, long since. But our daughter looks very

like her now.”

_Ben Ames Williams_.