Nothing of note happened for very nearly a month. We had the usual
variations of weather, good and bad, but mostly good, and no gales.
We had no luck, however. Few whales were raised, and those that we
did see were shy and wild, and we got none of them. It was December
before we got another.
Early one morning I was out on deck. I had been sent on some errand
by Mr. Wallet. I was never very quick on Mr. Wallet’s errands, and
I stopped by the windlass, where I was out of sight from aft, and
looked out forward. It was a perfect morning, the sun just up,
making a path of gold over the tops of the seas, and the Clearchus
lazily rolling along that golden path. Of course I lost myself in
contemplation, half shut my eyes, and drank in the beauty of it.
Mr. Wallet and his errands were forgotten, the oily, grimy ship was
behind me, and the gentle breeze blew on my cheek. It was not strong
enough to keep the heavy sails filled out, and the jibs, over my
head, almost flapped with every roll of the ship. I imagined myself
Magellan, and ahead of me that unknown shore, on which a huge savage,
resplendent in yellow paint, danced and made gestures of invitation.
It was very real to me, and when there suddenly appeared a tiny, soft
feather in the savage’s hair—appeared, seemed to stand still for an
instant, a tiny, drooping ostrich plume, drifted, and disappeared—I
did not know it for what it was. It came again, the tiny, drooping
ostrich plume; and at the same moment the quavering cry from high
over my head—“Blo-o-ws!” The dancing savage vanished, and I ran.
There were between three and six whales in the pod; I could not tell
just how many, but I set those limits. I {157} waited until I was
sure Mr. Brown’s boat would go; then I went unobtrusively and stood
beside the captain, for I thought he might let me go in it. He took
no notice of me, and I walked away, my heart in my boots. All five
boats were away.
We had seen nothing of the Annie Battles since that day near
Hatteras, except a dissolving view of her topsails going south, just
as we went in to Fayal. Captain Coffin had not been waiting on the
Western grounds, in spite of his promise. I think that all of us,
including the officers, had completely forgotten her. I know that her
very existence had slipped from my mind, and our last meeting with
her was of the same order as our picking up the man with his foot
bitten off by sharks, but of less importance. Now, as I watched the
boats sailing slowly over that smooth sea, and spreading out fanwise
as they went, I caught sight of topmasts rising to the eastward. They
must have been in plain sight for some time before I saw them, with
their square topsails, for we were already raising her lower sails.
It was the Battles, there could be no doubt about it.
Where we were, the wind was nothing more than a light, variable air,
mostly from the southwest; but the Battles was bringing with her a
brisk breeze from the southeast. I ran below to get my glass—that
load of junk—and hung it about my neck. When I got on deck again the
Battles seemed to be hesitating, coming up slowly into the wind,
her topsails shaking and her booms evidently swinging. It was as if
she no longer felt the directing hand of any man; as if there was
nobody at the helm, or she had lost her rudder. I thought it queer
behavior, and so did Captain Nelson. He was gazing steadfastly at
her, muttering to himself, and wondering what Fred Coffin could be up
to. Then he saw me with the glass hanging about my neck.
“Here, Tim,” he said, “give me your glass, and run below and get
mine.” {158}
I gave it to him, and ran below without a word. I was gone but a
couple of minutes, but when I got back I saw that the Battles had
trimmed her sheets, and was paying off again.
“See anything, sir?” I asked eagerly.
He shook his head. “Her decks have n’t risen yet,” he said. “Seems to
be all right now. I did n’t know but she was in trouble, and we ’d
better run down to her; and we have n’t got much of a crew left
aboard.”
The breeze had not reached the boats yet—it had not reached the
whales—but the boats were very much nearer the pod of whales than the
Battles was, and our mates evidently thought that they would be fast
long before the Battles could lower a boat, and they held on under
sail. But the whales were wandering directly away from us, and the
Battles, her hesitation over, was now coming fast. I saw first one
boat and then another hurriedly take in sail, and the men taking to
their oars. I could see the Battles plainly through my glass, and I
almost caught the wave she was carrying under her bow. Now and then I
saw the top of it through the mirage, as she threw the spray high. It
seemed to me that she was almost on top of the whales. She was not,
of course. That phenomenon of loss of perspective in using a glass
has since become familiar to me.
Suddenly the Battles came up into the wind, throwing her topsails
aback. It stopped her short, all standing. Two of her boats were away
almost before she had stopped, and the men in them pulling as if in
a race, the boatheader throwing his weight, with his free hand, on
the after oar at each stroke. It was a race in fact, and the prize
was a thousand dollars or so. I forget what the price of oil was at
the time, but I have the impression that it was low. The Battles’ men
were fresh, ours were not, but I saw two of our boats, Mr. Baker’s
and Mr. Tilton’s, it turned out, although I could not distinguish
them at that {159} distance—both had been helping the pulling in the
same way that the boatheaders of the Battles had—come up on one side
of a whale just as one of the boats from the Battles came up on the
other side. All three harpooners seemed to dart at the same instant.
What happened then I could not see clearly. It was all pretty far
away, and all I saw was a confusion of boats and men, and the great
flukes of the whale rising instantly, and crashing down on the sea
near one of our boats, just missing it and apparently throwing a man
into the water. Then the whale started off, towing the three boats.
The details I had from Peter later.
Macy and Azevedo rarely missed a dart, and they had not missed this
time, in spite of their hard pull. Macy had both irons in to the
hafts, and Azevedo one. Azevedo was like a bull in strength, but he
was not so well placed as Macy—near the flukes—and his second iron
did not bite deep, not much above the barb. When the flukes crashed
down on the water Mr. Tilton’s boat was deluged, and Almeida, a green
hand, was so scared that he jumped overboard. They could not stop
then to pick him up, but he was picked up later, badly frightened,
but none the worse otherwise. It is doubtful whether any one in Mr.
Tilton’s boat gave him a thought, for the whale had started running.
Nobody in either Mr. Baker’s boat or in Mr. Tilton’s seemed to know
definitely who had struck first, although they all said, with more
or less emphasis, Macy or Azevedo. There was no agreement as to
which of the two it was, all in Mr. Baker’s boat saying Macy, and
all in Mr. Tilton’s saying Azevedo; and I really think there can
be no doubt that all three boats had struck at as nearly the same
instant as possible. Certainly the Battles’ men held up their end
of the argument a little later. The whale did not run fast nor far,
with three boats towing, and every man in every boat heaving on his
line for all he was worth. The {160} three mates were standing in
the bows with lances poised in their hands; and Mr. Baker, seeing a
chance, pitchpoled. At the same instant the mate of the Battles—if it
was the mate—also pitchpoled. Peter said it was a pretty sight to see
the two lances in the air at the same time, as if they were from two
guns fired with the same lanyard. The lances flew true, and pierced
the whale at the same moment. They were drawn back by the light warps
attached to the hafts, each man working frantically. Mr. Baker was a
trifle quicker in recovery. The boat was almost within reach of the
whale, but not quite, and he darted the lance with great force. The
Battles’ boat was a little nearer the whale, and its lance was held
for a second while the men heaved again. Then it was plunged into the
side of the whale.
Not one of the three boats took even the usual precautions, which
seem little enough, but what chance had the whale with three lances
being churned up and down in his in’ards? He just lay still and
quivered, spouting thick blood, and gave up the ghost. Then came a
ticklish time.
“For a quarter of an hour,” said Peter, who was telling me the story,
“I did n’t know whether there was going to be a fight or not, but I
rather thought there was. Mr. Baker and the mate of the Battles—he
was one of the mates, I s’pose—had it back and forth across the back
of the whale, and they both got pretty mad. Mr. Baker said they were
first up.
“ ‘You were not!’ said the Battles’ mate. ‘I was first up. But what
has that to do with it anyway? Our iron struck first.’
“ ‘Like hell,’ said Mr. Baker. ‘Macy’s iron struck first. Whale ’s
ours. I ’d swear to it.’
“ ‘No doubt,’ said the Battles’ mate; ‘but that don’t make it so.’
‘What d’ ye mean?’ said Mr. Baker. ‘Call me a liar, do you?’ {161}
“ ‘I ’ll call you anything you like!’ said the Battles’ mate. ‘I ’ll
call you thief if you take this whale. It ’s ours.’
“Mr. Baker gave him back as good as he sent, and they got madder and
madder. Just as I thought they were going to get in a fight over it,
Mr. Baker began to cool down, and the Battles’ mate began to cool
down too. We were two boats to his one, and if we chose to just take
the whale, he could n’t prevent us, and he knew it. Mr. Baker did n’t
want to do it that way, and he knew well enough what the old man
would think of it.
“ ‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to fight about it. That
would n’t do you any good, nor me either, though we could do what we
pleased if it came to a fight. We ’ll see Cap’n Coffin and fix it up
with him.’
“ ‘Fix it up with me, here and now,’ said the Battles’ mate. ‘You
can’t see Cap’n Coffin. He ’s confined to his cabin.’
“ ‘Confined to his cabin!’ said Mr. Baker. ‘What ’s the matter with
him?’
“ ‘Nothing much,’ said the Battles’ mate. ‘Sticks in his cabin, and
won’t see anybody.’
“ ‘That ’s queer,’ said Mr. Baker. ‘How does he give his orders?’
“ ‘Instructions in writing to be left on the cabin table every
morning. No business of yours, but I don’t mind telling you.’
“ ‘Queer!’ said Mr. Baker. ‘Very queer.’
“It is mighty queer too, when you come to think of it,” said Peter.
“But I don’t know the rights of it.
“The Battles’ mate was impatient. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘what ’you got to
say?’
“Mr. Baker kind o’ smiled. ‘Fair division,’ he says; ‘we ’ll take the
blubber, and you take the carcass.’
“ ‘_What!_’ roars the Battles’ mate. ‘What the—’ Then his eye falls
on the whale, and travels over it, what you {162} can see of it,
and that ain’t much. He scratched his head, his eye travelling over
the whale from end to end. ‘ I ’ll take you,’ he says quietly. ‘The
carcass to be whole, and to be delivered at our side. Does the
carcass include the case?’
“ ‘The carcass does _not_ include the case,’ said Mr. Baker, very
sarcastic. He had been looking the whale over. ‘Don’t you think
you ’ve got enough?’
“ ‘I ’ll take a chance,’ said the Battles’ mate, smiling. ‘Delivered
at our side, remember.’
“ ‘I ’ll go halfway,’ said Mr. Baker. ‘Be ready to take it there.
I ’ll stand to my bargain, but I ’ve an idea that the joke ’s on me.’
“And the joke ’s on him, I ’m thinking, Tim, and on us. Come and take
a look.”
He led me to the side. The whale we had been talking about, with one
other, lay there below us.
“Now,” said Peter, “if you ’ll notice, that whale looks kind o’ thin
and withered-like for a whale of his size. It ’s not enough to see
unless you were taking special notice, but the Battles’ mate was;
and it ’s my idea that he ’ll not make more ’n thirty-five or forty
barrel, when he ought to make sixty. The Battles’ mate no doubt
expects to find ambergris in him, and Mr. Baker thinks he will, and I
think he will—unless we can find a way to get it out of him without
cutting him open. Mr. Baker gave his word not to cut the carcass.”
“How could they do that, Peter?”
“Well, Tim, I ’ve never seen it done, but we could try. Swing an
anchor, or some other heavy thing, say a hogshead o’ water, above
him, and let it drop a few times on his stomach or his insides so ’s
to stir ’em up well, and we might get a little. It ’d be worth
trying.”
When we had finished cutting-in, we did try just that. I suppose they
were afraid an anchor would tear the carcass, but a cask of sea-water
would not. We salvaged {163} a few scraps of ambergris, about a
thousand dollars’ worth, just enough to let the officers know what a
poor bargain Mr. Baker had made. I never knew how much of the stuff
the Battles got from this whale. Probably ten times as much.
Altogether that was one of our unlucky days. Mr. Wallet let the Annie
Battles herself get between him and his whale, and take it away from
him. He did not exert himself or his men to get it, it seemed to us,
and Captain Nelson’s displeasure was clear enough. I have no doubt it
was clear to Mr. Wallet, for I saw the captain talk forcibly to him
when he came aboard, although I do not know what he said. Mr. Snow
being on the end of the line farthest from the Battles, got his whale
without molestation.
Mr. Brown’s boat fared the worst. He was waiting for his whale to
rise, and the second boat from the Battles came up opposite him, and
waited also. When the whale rose, Starbuck struck him first. There
could be no doubt about it. I saw it all clearly through my glass.
Notwithstanding, the Battles’ boat pulled up at once, and sunk an
iron in him. At that third iron—Starbuck had two irons fast—the whale
started to run, and we had to give him line. While the line was
snaking out, rather slack, somehow or other, for the second time on
that voyage, it kinked and caught a man in the kink. It was Kane who
was caught, about his arm or shoulder. He had not far to go, for Mr.
Brown had put back his kicking-strap immediately after the accident
to poor Wright; but his going those few feet was rather sudden. The
kicking-strap stopped him. That might have been as unfortunate for
him as being taken overboard, but Mr. Brown, who had changed places
with Starbuck, saw it almost before it happened, and reached for the
hatchet and cut. His action was lightning-like in its quickness.
Although Kane brought up on the kicking-strap, he did not have to
start the heavy boat, {164} or quite possibly his arm might have
been torn out. As it was, he got off with a severe wrench to his
shoulder, and with a badly bruised arm. His arm turned black where
the kink had caught it, and showed the lay of the line plainly.
That was the end of that whale for us. The Battles’ boat got him.
{165}