ADVENTURE WITH A WHALE.
Next day the wind veered due west, and we trimmed the _Leda_, to lie
close to it, making long tacks to the southward, as we had been
driven so far to the north-east.
Hartly and I were leaning over the weather-quarter, chatting and
gazing listlessly at the white water that bubbled like a flooded
mill-race under the brig's counter, while Mother Cary's chickens came
tripping lightly after us, when suddenly a huge whale (like a ship's
hull, bottom uppermost) rose from the waves close by us, with the
water pouring in torrents from its dusky and shining sides. Its
appearance was so sudden and alarming, that I started back; but
Hartly laughed, saying,
"Don't mind him, Jack; he is not coming on board."
For a full minute he floated in the water, keeping pace with the
brig, to the great admiration of our old Orkney whaleman, Hans, and
then sank slowly down--down far below. We could see his vast bulk
shining as he passed _under_ us, and came up on our other side, so
close that he almost grazed the copper of the _Leda_.
This monster of the deep was nearly as large, at least as long, as
the brig, and his aspect was calculated to inspire awe in those who
were less familiar than we now were with the denizens of the sea.
He was a common whale, and the head being, as usual, out of all
proportion, was one-third the entire size of the fish, while the eyes
were no larger than those of an ox. The smooth and slippery skin,
from which the foam dripped, was mottled; and it--or _he_, as we
named him--swam not as whales generally do, _against_ the wind, but
with us.
Our friend was evidently in a playful mood, as he repeatedly rose and
sank, plunged and surged up on each side of the _Leda_ alternately,
and twice grazed our rudder.
"He smells the blubber and sealskins aboard, sir," said Hans
Peterkin, "and they make him frolicsome, you see."
"Look out, sir!" added Reeves, who was in the mainchains; "by Jove,
he'll be foul of us in his next gambol!"
"And we may have our rudder unshipped--I don't like this at all,"
replied Hartly. "Cuffy, bring me a sealing-gun, with powder and a
handful of slugs."
In half a minute Hartly stood in the boat at the stern davits, with
the long gun loaded and charged with ten square junks of lead, each
larger than a rifle ball. Then, just as the whale, for the fifth or
sixth time rose under the stern, he fired.
The whole charge entered one of the great spiracles, or blow-holes,
which are situated in the middle of the head, about sixteen feet from
the nose, and through which this fish can spout to a vast height when
wounded or annoyed. The moment the gun was fired, our whale sunk
like a stone.
"There he goes, for ever I hope!" cried Hartly.
"We have not seen the last of him, sir," said old Hans, as he got
astride the boom of the fore-and-aft mainsail in his excitement to
see the whale again; "he has a long way to go _down_, before he'll
come up again. Why, Lord love you, sir, I have known them in the
sound of Yell, when struck by a harpoon, descend head-foremost for
eight hundred fathoms, (at the rate of eight knots an hour, till the
line in the bowpost smoked, ay, blazed with friction,) and then come
up with their jawbones broken, by running foul of a rock at the
bottom. That one has gone down fully four hundred fathoms."
"How do you know, Hans?"
"By the eddy--he'll be up to _blow_, directly."
"Where?" said I.
"On our weather beam, I think. See! there are the bubbles of his
blowing already!"
Hans was right; even while he spoke, the whale rose to the surface,
about fifty yards from us, and from his blow-holes shot a vast spout
of water streaked with blood into the air, and then it pattered like
rain as it fell into the sea. After lashing the water furiously with
his tail till it boiled in foam around him, and the air above became
filled with vapour, he threw himself into a _perpendicular_ position,
and stood for a moment like a pillar, from the sea.
It was a strange and exciting scene!
He now flapped his mighty flukes, which were perhaps thirty feet
apart, till they cracked like a gigantic whip, and then sank from our
gaze in a deep eddy, around which the concentric waves heaved and
broke for a considerable time; but we saw him no more.
"Well, Hans," said I, "how do you like this adventure?"
"Not much, Master Manly," replied the old Scotsman, shaking his white
hairs; "'cause you see, sir, when a whale takes to dancing about on
his nose in this fashion, after lashing the water with his flukes, a
_storm_ is sure to follow. A whale knows better than a human
creature when a close-reefed topsail breeze is coming, by a pricking
pain that comes over their bodies, and so, after dancing about as
that fellow did, they run right away from that quarter of the sea to
another. I have known o' this many times, when I was a wee bairn at
home in Whalsoe. I'll stake a trifle we have our topgallant yards on
deck before the sun sets."
And old Hans proved correct.