informed Mac that, “hif ’e thawt ’e wuz blanky well goin’ ter call
’im a bloomin’ ’eathen an’ not goin’ ter git bashed over it, ’e wuz a
bigger blank fool then ’e’d ever seen a-smokin’ tea-leaves ter sive
terbacker.” To this outburst Mac only said what begins this yarn,
and, in so saying, brought all hands down on him at once. Conkey was
restrained from his meditated attack while one after another tried to
argue the point with Mac, and to convince him that no man who neglected
to keep Christmas Day as a feast of jollity and respite from all work,
except under the direst pressure of necessity, could possibly be a
Christian.
The contract we had on hand, though, was much too large for us.
Metaphorically speaking, Mac wiped the fo’c’sle deck with each of us in
succession. His arguments, in the first place, were far too deep for
our capacity, had they been intelligible; but couched in the richest
Aberdeenshire dialect, and bristling with theological terminology
utterly foreign to us, we stood no chance. One by one we were reduced
to silence. It was broken by Conkey, who said finally, “Hi don’t know
wot ’e bloomin’ well sez, but Hi c’n punch ’is hugly carrotty mug for
’im, an’ ’ere goes.”
Again we restrained our shipmate’s primitive instincts, while Mac
slowly rose from his donkey, wiped his sheath-knife deliberately on
his pants, put it away, and then, quietly as if it had just occurred
to him, turned to the raging Conkey, saying, “See heer, ma laddie,
A’al mak’ y’ an oafer. A’al fecht ye. If ye gie ma a lickin’ A’al
hae naethin’ mair tae dae wi’ the business; bud if Ah lick you, A’al
dae aal Ah can tae get, no juist the day aff, but a guid blow-out o’
vittles in the bairgin, altho’ Ah misdoot ma muckle ther’s naethin’ aft
that ye cud mak’ a decent meal o’. Hoo diz that shoot ye?”
For all answer Conkey, breaking away from those who had held him,
sprang at Mac, dealing, as he came, two blows, right and left, like
flashes. Mac did not attempt to parry them, but seemed to stoop
quietly; and suddenly Conkey’s heels banged against the beam overhead.
Immediately afterwards there came the dull thump of his head upon the
floor. Mac just disengaged himself, and stood waiting till his opponent
should feel able or willing to resume.
Truly the latter’s head must have been as thick as his courage was
high, for, before any of us had begun to offer assistance, he had
struggled to his feet, looking a bit dazed, it is true, but evidently
as full of fight as ever. He had learned a lesson, however--that
caution in dealing with his sturdy adversary was necessary, and that he
must accommodate his undoubted boxing powers to new conditions.
In a crouching attitude, and with two arms held bow-wise in front,
he moved nearer the rugged, square-set figure of the Scotchman, who,
as before, stood strictly on the defensive. There was a feint by
Conkey--we saw Mac’s head go down again--but then came a sharp thud
and a swinging, sidelong blow from Conkey, and Mac seemed to crumble
into a heap, for, as he stooped to repeat his former successful grip,
Conkey had shot upward his right knee with such force that Mac’s nose
was a red ruin, and the blow on the ear from Conkey’s left could have
done Mac very little good. So far, the advantage undoubtedly lay with
the Londoner, but, after a brief spell, Mac pulled himself together,
and the two clinched again. Locked together like a pair of cats, except
that they neither bit, scratched, nor made a sound, they writhed all
over the fo’c’sle unable to strike, but so equally matched that neither
could loose himself. Had they been alone, I believe only death would
have parted them; but at last, in sheer admiration for the doggedness
of their pluck, we laid hold on them and tore them apart, declaring
that two such champions ought to be firm friends. As soon as they got
their breath, Conkey held out his hand, saying, “Scotty, me cock,
ye’re as good a man as me, but Hi’m----hif ye’re a better. If yer
think y’are, wy, we’ll just ply the bloomin’ ’and art, but if ye’re
satisfied, Hi am.” Taking the proffered hand, Scotty replied, “Mahn,
A’am no thet petickler. Ah haena a pickle o’ ambeeshun tae be thocht a
better mahn than ma neebours, neither am Ah a godless fule that henkers
aefther fechtin’ for fechtin’s sake; but as ye say, we’re baith’s
guid’s yin anither, an’ there’s ma han’ upo’ th’ maetter. Ah dinna see
’at we’re ony forrader wi’ oor bairgin tho’.”
Then a regular clamour of voices arose, all saying the same thing, viz.
that the heroes should “pull sticks”--that is, one should hold two
splinters of wood concealed in his hand with the ends just protruding
for the other to choose from, and whichever got the shortest piece
should be the loser. It is a time-honoured fo’c’sle way of settling
disputes or arranging watches.
They drew, and Scotty won. All faces fell at this, for if we were
going to make a bold bid for our Christmas privileges we needed unity,
and especially we wanted such a tough nut as Jock MacTavish actively
enlisted on our side. The winner lifted our gloom by saying quietly,
“Sae A’m with ye, aefther aal, ut seems.” Then, noting the surprise on
our faces, he went on, “What’s the differ, think ye, whether Ah win at
fechtin’ or drawin’. Ah said Ah’d be with ye if Ah won, sae that’s a’
richt.” And, easy in our minds, we separated, the watch below to their
bunks, and the rest to their stations.
* * * * *
Morning broke in glory, such a day as we see, perhaps, two of during a
year in our hard, grey climate at home. After wetting down the decks as
usual, the mate gave the order to turn-to at cleaning the tryworks--a
step which brought us all up “with a round turn,” as we say. Closing
together we faced the amazed officer, and Mac, stepping a little in
advance, said, “Div ye no ken, Maister Winsloe, ’at this is the day o’
days tae all true Chreestyin’ men. Suner than Ah’d dae ae han’s turrn
on Chrissmus Day--except, af coorse, in the wye o’ neceesary seamen’s
duties, sic as a trick at the wheel, furrlin’ sail, or the like--Ah’d
gae ashore this meenut!”
At this we couldn’t help chuckling, for the nearest land was about
three miles beneath our keel, vertically, and at least a thousand
horizontally. But the mate was like Lot’s wife after she looked back.
The thing was outside his mental dimension altogether. As the real
significance of it filtered through, his eyes gleamed, and, with a yell
like a Pawnee, he leaped for Scotty--and missed him; for Scotty was a
born dodger, and had an eye like a gull’s. The officer’s spring carried
him right into our midst, however; and, with a perfect hurricane of
bad words, he struck out right and left as if we were the usual mixed
gang of Dagoes, Dutchmen, and Kanakas he had been used to. Pluck he
certainly did not lack, but his judgment had turned sour.
[Illustration: The skipper produced from his hip-pocket a revolver.]
In a minute he was flat on deck on his face, with Conkey sitting on his
head, and the rest of us were marching aft to make an end of the matter
with the old man. He reached the deck from below just as we arrived;
and, although the most unusual sight might well have given him pause,
he showed no sign of surprise.
Advancing to meet us, he said quietly, “Well?” Again Mac was to the
fore, and, facing the stately, impassive figure of the skipper, he
said, “We’ve juist daundert aeft, sir, tae wuss ye a Murry Chrismuss,
an’ tae thenk ye in advance-like for the bit extry vittles, an’ maybe
a drap o’ somethin’ cheerin’ tae drink ye’re health in an sic an
ahspeeshus occashin.”
For an answer the skipper produced from his hip-pocket a revolver,
which he pointed straight at Scotty’s head, while with the other hand
he made a comprehensive gesture, which we obeyed by falling back from
that dangerous vicinity. As we did so, there was a rioting behind us,
and into our midst burst the mate and Conkey, fiercely struggling.
In a moment there was as pretty a rough-and-tumble among us as any
fighting-man would wish to see, for the harpooners and the other three
mates had sprung in from somewhere, and were making up for lost time
with vigour.
Apart from the struggling crowd the skipper stood fingering his
shooting-iron, apparently irresolute--indeed, it was hard to decide
for a moment what to do. Bloodshed was evidently most distasteful to
him, yet there could be no doubt that he would not shrink from it if
necessary. But the whole affair was so grotesque, so causeless, that he
was undecided how to deal with it, the more especially as his officers
were every one mixed inextricably with the crew in a writhing mass.
The problem was solved for him and for us in a most unexpected way. In
the midst of the riot there was a tremendous shock, as if the Ursus
had suddenly struck a rock while going at full speed; but, as she
had barely been going through the water at the rate of two knots an
hour, that was an impossible explanation. The concussion, whatever it
was, flung every man to the deck, and in one moment all thoughts were
switched off the conflict with one another and on to this mysterious
danger. All hands rushed to the side and looked overboard, to see
the blue of the sea streaked with bands of blood, while not twenty
feet away, on the starboard beam, a huge sperm whale lay feebly
exhaling breath that showed redly against the blue of the water. Like
a trumpet-blast the old man’s voice rang out, “Lower ’way boats!” and
with catlike celerity every man flew to his station, the falls rattled,
and with an almost simultaneous splash three boats took the water.
“Hold on, starboard bow boat!” roared the old man again, seeing that
there was no need of it, and taking that advantage of keeping it in its
place given him by the third mate being a few seconds slower than the
others in getting away.
Before we had time to realize what a change had come over us all, we
were furiously assaulting the monster, but he was in no condition to
retaliate. Had we left him alone, he must have died in a few minutes,
for protruding from the side of his massive head was a jagged piece of
timber, showing white and splintered where it had been freshly broken
away.
We had little time to speculate upon the strangeness of the occurrence,
for suddenly we were aware that urgent signals were being made from the
ship; and, leaving one boat to pass the fluke-line ready for hauling
our prize alongside, the other two sped back to the ship. Arriving
alongside, we clambered swiftly on board, to hear the skipper’s deep
voice calling, “Leave the boats and man the pumps!” A cold shudder
ran through us at the words, for in a moment all knew that our ship
had received a deadly blow from the wounded whale, and that it was
a portion of her that we had seen protruding from his head. And we
remembered the awful loneliness of that part of the Pacific, far away
from the track of all ships except an occasional whaler, so occasional
that our chances of falling in with one was infinitesimal.
The wind fell to a dead calm. There was not a cloud in the heavens, and
the sea in our immediate vicinity was not only smooth, but silky, from
the slight oiliness we exuded, so that looking down into it was almost
like looking up at the sky. After the first alarm had subsided it was
evident that we could have several relays at the pumps, their structure
not admitting of more than eight men working conveniently at one time.
The skipper stood by with the sounding-rod, waiting, in grim silence,
to see whether we or the leak were gaining, when Mac, sidling up to
him, made some remark that we could not hear. The skipper turned to him
and nodded; and immediately we saw our pawky shipmate shedding his two
garments. Next thing we knew he was climbing over the side, and those
of us who were resting mounted the rail and watched him. I have seen
Kanakas diving for pearl-shell, and Malays diving for pearls, but never
an olive-skinned amphibian of them all could have held a candle to Jock
MacTavish. He swam about under the ship’s bottom, examining her just
as coolly as if in Lambeth Baths, his wide, open eyes glaring upward
through the water with a most uncanny look in them--like the eyes of a
man long dead. Suddenly he popped up alongside, not at all distressed,
and, wringing the water from his nose, mounted the side and approached
the skipper.
With one accord the clang of the pumps ceased to hear his words, for we
felt that they were a verdict of life or death for all of us. “She’ll
be a’ recht, sir,” said he. “Ther’s a muckle hole in th’ garburd
straake, an’ aboot twenty fit o’ the fause keel awa’; bit a poke fu’
o’ shakins ’ll bung it up brawly wi’ a len’th o’ chain roond her tae
keep it in’s plaace.” The pumping was resumed with all the energy of
hope renewed, while busy hands made ready a bagful of soft rope-yarns
and got up a spare fluke-chain. The bag was made fast in the bight of a
rope, which, weighted with a lump of sandstone attached by a slipping
lashing of spunyarn, was passed under her bottom. Again Mac went
overboard and guided the plug into its place.
Then the chain was passed round her, and placed over the plug by
Scotty. On deck we hove it taut, and in four hours we had sucked her
out.
Then the skipper called all hands aft, and said, “Boys, ye’re the
whitest crowd I’ve ever struck. The best dinner I k’n scare up ’s
waitin’ for ye,’n I’ve raided the medsun chest for the only drop of
licker thar is aboard. I don’t tech fire-water meself, but I’ll wish
ye a Merry Christmas with all me heart. Ther’s only one thing I’d like
t’ know; an’ that is, haow a Scotchman comes to risk his life for a
Christmas dinner?” “We’el, cap’n,” drawled Mac, “’twus juist a wee bit
seekoeloegical expeerimunt.”
Time’s up; but I must add that we humoured the old barky back to
’Frisco--and we didn’t lose that whale either.
ON THE VERTEX
Not the least curious to the uninitiated of the ways by which
shipmasters navigate their vessels over the trackless wastes of
ocean is that known to the navigator by the name of Great Circle
Sailing. Lest the timid reader take alarm at the introduction of so
high-sounding a technical term, let me hasten to assure him or her
that I have no deep-laid designs upon innocent happiness by imposing
a trigonometrical treatise upon them in the guise of an amusing or
interesting story. To such baseness I cannot stoop, for one very
good reason at any rate, because I have such a plentiful lack of
trigonometry myself. Nevertheless, I do think that much more interest
might be taken in the ways of our ships and their crews by the people
of this essentially maritime nation than is at present the case if,
in the course of sea-story telling, the narrators were not averse
to giving a few accurate details as to the why and how of nautical
proceedings.
Having, I trust, allayed all tremors by these preliminary remarks, let
me go on to say that while all sane civilized persons believe this
earth of ours to be more or less globular in shape, it probably occurs
to but few that the shortest distance from point to point on a globe
is along a curve. But in order to get any substantial gain out of
this knowledge in the direction of shortening a ship’s passage, it is
necessary first of all to have a considerable stretch of sea whereon to
draw your curve, which is after all a straight line, since it is the
shortest distance between two points. Even the fine open ocean between
England and America is hardly sufficient to induce navigators to make
use of Great Circle Sailing on outward or homeward passages, the gain
being so small. When, however, the captain of an outward bound ship
has wriggled through the baffling belt of hesitating winds that have
hindered his progress southward from the equator to Cape, and begins
to look for the coming of the brave westerly gales that shall send him
flying before them to Australia or New Zealand, an opportunity occurs
as in no other part of the world for putting the pretty Great Circle
theory into practice.
It may be necessary to remind the reader that Great Circles are those
which divide a globe into two equal parts, such as the equator and the
meridians. If, then, the navigator at Cape in South America draws a
thread tightly on a terrestrial globe between that point and, say, the
south-east cape of Tasmania, the line it describes will be the arc of
a Great Circle, and consequently the shortest distance between the two
places. But when he comes to lay down the track which that thread has
described upon his Mercator chart he finds that, instead of steering
almost a straight course between the two places, he must describe a
huge curve, with its vertex or highest southerly point well within the
Antarctic circle. Now, no sane seaman would dream of seeking such a
latitude upon any voyage but one of exploration, since it is well known
what kind of weather awaits the unfortunate mariner there. But, without
saying that Captain Jellico was a lunatic, it is necessary to remark
that he was no ordinary shipmaster, and those who knew him best often
prophesied that one day his persistent pursuit of hobbies and fads
would involve him and all his unfortunate crew in some extraordinary
disaster.
On the present voyage he commanded an ancient teak built barque that
had long ago seen her best days, and was, besides, so slow that any of
the ordinary methods of economizing time were a ridiculous waste of
energy when applied to her. Of course, she carried stunsails, those
infernal auxiliaries that are or were responsible for more sin on board
ship than any other invention of man. She was bound to Auckland, and
by the time she had waddled as far south as Cape had already consumed
as many days as a smart clipper ship would have needed to do the whole
passage. Yet Captain Jellico was so proud of the ugly old tub (bathing
machine, the men called her), principally because he was half-owner
of her, that he was perfectly blind to her slothful and unhandy
qualities. Day by day he held forth to his disgusted mate upon the
beauty of the Great Circle problem, and the desirability of putting
it into practice, announcing his firm intention of carrying it out in
its entirety this trip. He wasn’t going to piffle with any “composite”
Great Circle track, not he. Half-hearted seamen might choose to follow
the great curve down as far as 50° S. or so, and then shirk the whole
business by steering due east for a couple of thousand miles, but he
would do the trick properly, and touch the vertex, unless, indeed, it
happened to be on the mainland of Antarctica. After an hour or two
of this sort of talk the mate would go on deck feeling mighty sick,
and muttering fervent prayers that his commander would meet with some
entirely disabling accident soon, one that would effectually hinder him
from carrying out his oft-reiterated intention. But no such answer was
afforded to Mr. Marline’s impious aspirations. The steadfast westerly
wind began as usual, and the clumsy old Chanticleer, under every rag of
canvas, stunsails and all, began to plunder along that hateful curve,
steering about south-east by south. Gradually the wind strengthened,
until, much to the delight of the scanty crew, the fluttering rags
that hung precariously at the yard-arms were taken in and stowed
snugly away, the booms and irons were sent down from aloft, and lashed
along the scuppers with the spare spars and stunsail carrying, for
that passage, at any rate, became only a wretched memory. Sterner and
stronger blew the wind as day succeeded day and higher latitudes were
successively reached, until, although it was the Antarctic summer, all
hands were wearing nearly every garment they possessed in the vain
endeavour to keep a little warmth in their thin blood.
One topic now overlaid every other in the endless causeries that were
held in the gloomy den where the sailors lived. It was the course
steered. The position of the ship is always more or less a matter of
conjecture to the men forward, except when some well-known island or
headland is sighted, but all sailors are able to judge fairly well
from the courses steered what track is being made, and the present
persistence in a southerly direction was disquieting in the extreme
to them all. The weather worsened every day, and occasional icebergs
showed their awful slopes through the surrounding greyness, making
every man strain his eyes when on the look-out or at the wheel in
painful anxiety lest the ship should suddenly come full tilt upon one
of them. A deep discontent was heavy upon the heart of every member of
the crew, with the sole exception of the skipper. Snugly wrapped in a
huge fur-lined jacket, and with an eared sealskin cap drawn down over
his ears, he paced the poop jauntily, as merry as Father Christmas,
and utterly oblivious of everything and everybody but the grand way
in which he was following up his Great Circle. At last, when a dull
settled misery seemed to have loaded all hands so that they appeared
to have lost the heart even to growl, a dense mist settled fatefully
down upon the ship, a white pall that was not dispelled again by
the strong, bitter wind. The skipper hardly ever left the deck, but
his almost sleepless vigilance had no effect upon his high spirits.
Suddenly at mid-day, when by dead reckoning he was within a day’s sail
of the vertex, the sea, which had been running in mountainous masses
for weeks past, occasionally breaking over all and seething about the
sodden decks, became strangely smooth and quiet, although the wind
still howled behind them. Such a change sent a thrill of terrible
dread through every heart. Even the skipper, with all his stubborn
fortitude, looked troubled, and faltered in his unresting tramp fore
and aft the poop. Then gradually the wind failed until it was almost
calm, and the enshrouding mist closed down upon the ship so densely
that it was hardly possible to see a fathom’s length away. The silence
became oppressive, all the more so because underlying it there was the
merest suggestion of a sound that always has a fateful significance for
the mariner, the hoarse, unsatisfied murmur of the sea sullenly beating
against an immovable barrier. And thus they waited and endured all the
agony and suspense born of ignorance of the dangers that they knew
must surround them, and utter incapability to do anything whatever.
Full thirty-six hours crept leaden-footed away before there came any
lightening of their darkness. Then gradually the rolling wreaths of
mist melted away and revealed to them their position. At first they
could hardly credit the evidence of their senses, believing that what
they saw hemming them in on every side was but the reluctant fog taking
on fantastic shapes of mountain, valley, and plateau. But when at last
the wintry sun gleamed palely, and they could discern the little surf
glittering against the bases of the ice-cliffs, all elusive hopes fled,
and they became fully aware of their horrible position. The vessel
lay motionless in a blue lake bounded on every side by white walls of
ice, the snowy glare of their cliffs contrasting curiously with the
deep blue of the sea. Some of the peaks soared to a height of over one
thousand feet, others again rose sheer from the water for several
hundreds of feet, and then terminated in flat table-like summits of
vast area. But all were alike in their grim lifelessness. They looked
as if they had thus existed for ages; it was impossible to imagine any
change in their terrible solidity.
After the first shock of the discovery had passed, the relief that
always comes from knowing the worst came to them, and they began
to speculate upon the manner in which they could have entered this
apparently ice-locked lake. Presently the skipper, in a strangely
altered voice, ordered the long boat to be got out, a task of great
difficulty, since, as in most vessels of the Chanticleer’s class, the
long boat was, besides being hampered up by a miscellaneous collection
of all the rubbish in the ship, secured as if she was never intended
to be used under any circumstances. But the tough job gave the hands
something to take their minds off their unhappy position, while the
exertion kept off the icy chill of their surroundings. When at last the
boat was in the water, although she was so leaky that one man was kept
constantly baling, the skipper entered her, and, with four oarsmen,
started to explore their prison. With the utmost caution, they surveyed
every fathom of the sea line, no detail of the ice-barrier escaping
their anguished scrutiny; but when at last, after six hours’ absence,
they returned on board, they had been unable to discover the slightest
vestige of a passage, no, not so much as would admit their boat. The
only conclusion that could be arrived at was that they had passed in
through the opening of a horseshoe-shaped berg of enormous area, and
that another smaller berg had drifted in after them and turned over in
the channel, effectually closing it against their return. Slowly and
sadly they had returned to the ship, the skipper looking heartbroken at
this tragic termination to his enthusiastic scheme of navigation. After
ascertaining his position by means of an artificial horizon, he called
all hands aft, and thus addressed them, “Men, we’m all fellow-sufferers
now, I reckon, and the only thing to do ’es to wait God’s good time for
lettin’ us get out. I find we’m in 61° S., 50° E., and I reckon our
only hope lies in the fact that this can’t be no shore ice; it must be
a floatin’ berg, ef ’tes a most amazin’ big un. Consequently it must be
a driftin’ to the norrard a little; they all do, and sooner or later
the sun ’ll melt us out. One good job, we got ’nough pervisions in the
cargo ter las’ us six years, an’ as for water, well, I reckon there’s
more fresh water froze around us than all the ships in the world ’ud
ever want. So we’ll just take care of ourselves, try an’ keep alive,’n
look after the old barky, for we shall certinly sail away in her yet.”
His speech was received in silence, but all hands looked brighter and
happier than they had done for a long time. They towed the vessel
into a sort of cove, and moored her firmly with kedges and hawsers to
the ice, then turned their attention to the invention of all sorts of
expedients for preventing the time hanging too heavily. Better feeding
became the order of the day, for the old man at once drew upon the
cargo, which included an immense assortment of preserved food of the
best brands, as well as many luxuries. And every day there was a slight
change in the position, showing that, as the skipper had said, the
whole body of ice was drifting north as well as east. So uneventfully
and tediously two months passed away, leaving everything pretty much
the same, except that the skipper seemed to have aged ten years.
Then one afternoon, when the enwrapped mist was so thick that even the
deck beneath their feet was scarcely visible, there came a tremendous
crash that made the old vessel quiver from keel to truck. It was
followed by loud splashes as of falling blocks of ice, and strange
sounds that resembled human voices. Presently the fog lifted, and
revealed a great gap in the ice-wall just ahead of the vessel, and on
one side of its cliffs the wreck of a splendid ship, whose crew were
huddled upon the precipitous crags of the berg. The sight sent all
hands into frantic activity on the instant. Toiling like giants, they
rescued all the nearly frozen men, who were in such evil case that
they could hardly ask whence their rescuers had come, and then, as
if incapable of fatigue, they strained every ounce of strength they
possessed to warp their long-imprisoned ship out of that terrible dock.
Once escaped, it is hardly necessary to say that Captain Jellico lost
no time in getting north and running his easting down upon a parallel
of 42° S. Great Circle Sailing had lost all its charms for him. And in
due time the Chanticleer arrived at Auckland, two hundred and forty-six
days out from home, with all her passengers and crew in the best of
health and mutually pleased with each other.
A MONARCH’S FALL
Glorious in all his splendid majesty, the great sun issued forth of
his chamber, and all the wide sea basked in his beams with a million
million smiles. Save the sea and the sun and the sky, there was nought
apparently existing--it might well have been the birthday of Light.
Also the one prevailing characteristic of the scene to a human eye, had
one been there to see, was peace--perfect stainless peace. But we are,
by the very fact of our organization, true impressionists, and only
by a severe course of training, voluntary or otherwise, do we realize
aught but the present fact, the past is all forgotten, the future all
unknown. So it was here, beneath that sea of smiling placid beauty
a war of unending ferocity was being waged, truceless, merciless;
for unto the victors belong the spoils, and without them they must
perish--there was none other food to be gotten.
But besides all this ruthless warfare carried on inevitably because
without it all must die of hunger, there were other causes of conflict,
matters of high policy and more intricate motive than just the blind
all-compelling pressure of hunger. The glowing surface of that morning
sea was suddenly disturbed simultaneously at many points, and like
ascending incense the bushy breathings of some scores of whales became
visible. Perfectly at their ease since their instincts assured them
that from this silent sea their only enemy was absent, they lay in
unstudied grace about the sparkling waters, the cows and youngsters
gambolling happily together in perfect freedom from care. Hither they
had come from one of their richest feeding-grounds, where all had laid
in a stock of energy sufficient to carry them half round the globe
without weariness. So they were fat with a great richness, strong
with incalculable strength, and because of these things they were
now about to settle a most momentous question. Apart from the main
gathering of females and calves by the space of about a mile lay five
individuals, who, from their enormous superiority in size, no less than
the staid gravity of their demeanour, were evidently the adult males
of the school. They lay almost motionless in the figure of a baseless
triangle whereof the apex was a magnificent bull over seventy feet in
length, with a back like some keelless ship bottom up, and a head huge
and square as a railway car. He it was who first broke the stillness
that reigned. Slowly raising his awful front with its down-hanging,
twenty-foot lower jaw exposing two gleaming rows of curved teeth,
he said, “Children, ye have chosen the time and the place for your
impeachment of my overlordship, and I am ready. Well, I wot that ye
do but as our changeless laws decree, that the choice of your actions
rests not with yourselves, that although ye feel lords of yourselves
and desirous of ruling all your fellows, it is but under the compelling
pressure of our hereditary instincts. Yet remember, I pray you,
before ye combine to drive me from among ye, for how many generations
I have led the school, how wisely I have chosen our paths, so that we
are still an unbroken family as we have been for more than a hundred
seasons. And if ye must bring your powers to test now, remember, too,
that I am no weakling, no dotard weary of rule, but mightiest among all
our people, conqueror in more than a thousand battles, wise with the
accumulated knowledge of a hundred generations of monarchy. Certainly
the day of my displacement must come; who should know that better
than I? but methinks it has not yet dawned, and I would not have ye
lightly pit your immature strength against mine, courting inevitable
destruction. Ponder well my words, for I have spoken.”
A solemn hush ensued, just emphasized by the slumbrous sound of
the sparkling wavelets lapping those mighty forms as they lay all
motionless and apparently inert. Yet it had been easy to see how along
each bastion like flank the rolling tendons, each one a cable in
itself, were tense and ready for instantaneous action, how the great
muscle mounds were hardened around the gigantic masses of bone, and the
flukes, each some hundred feet in area, did not yield to the heaving
bosom of the swell, but showed an almost imperceptible vibration as of
a fucus frond in a tide rip. After a perfect silence of some fifteen
minutes an answer came--from the youngest of the group, who lay remote
from the chief. “We have heard, O king, the words of wisdom, and our
hearts rejoice. Truly we have been of the fortunate in this goodly
realm, and ingrates indeed should we be had our training under so
terrible a champion been wasted upon us. But therefore it is that we
would forestall the shame that should overtake us did we wait until thy
forces had waned and that all-conquering might had dwindled into dotage
ere we essayed to put thy teaching into practice. Since thy deposition
from this proud place must be, to whose forces could’st thou more
honourably yield than to ours, the young warriors who have learned of
thee all we know, and who will carry on the magnificent traditions thou
hast handed down to us in a manner worthy of our splendid sire! And if
we be slain, as well may be, remembering with whom we do battle, the
greater our glory, the greater thine also.”
A deep murmur like the bursting of a tidal wave against the sea-worn
lava rocks of Ascension marked the satisfaction of the group at this
exposition of their views, and as if actuated by one set of nerves the
colossal four swung round shoulder to shoulder, and faced the ocean
monarch. Moving not by a barnacle’s breadth, he answered, “It is well
spoken, oh my children, ye are wiser than I. And be the issue what
it will, all shall know that the royal race still holds. As in the
days when our fathers met and slew the slimy dragons of the pit, and,
unscared by fathom-long claws or ten-ply coats of mail, dashed them in
pieces and chased them from the blue deep they befouled, so to-day when
the world has grown old, and our ancient heritage has sorely shrunken,
our warfare shall still be the mightiest among created things.”
Hardly had the leviathan uttered the last word when, with a roar like
Niagara bursting its bonds in spring, he hurled his vast bulk headlong
upon the close gathered band of his huge offspring. His body was like
a bent bow, and its recoil tore the amazed sea into deep whirls and
eddies as if an island had foundered. Full upon the foremost one he
fell, and deep answered unto deep with the impact. That awful blow
dashed its recipient far into the soundless depths while the champion
sped swiftly forward on his course, unable to turn until his impetus
was somewhat spent. Before he could again face his foes, the three were
upon him, smiting with Titanic fluke strokes, circling beneath him with
intent to catch the down-hanging shaft of his lower jaw, rising swiftly
end on beneath the broad spread of his belly, leaping high into the
bright air and falling flatlings upon his wide back. The tormented sea
foamed and hissed in angry protest, screaming sea-birds circled low
around the conflict, ravening sharks gathered from unknown distances,
scenting blood, and all the countless tribes of ocean waited aghast.
But after the first red fury had passed came the wariness, came the
fruitage of all those years of training, all the accumulated instincts
of ages to supplement blind brutal force with deep laid schemes of
attack and defence. As yet the three survivors were but slightly
injured, for they had so divided their attack even in that first
great onset, that the old warrior could not safely single out one for
destruction. Now the youngest, the spokesman, glided to the front of
his brethren, and faced his waiting sire--
“What! so soon weary. Thou art older than we thought. Truly this
battle hath been delayed too long. We looked for a fight that should
be remembered for many generations, and behold----” Out of the corner
of his eye he saw the foam circles rise as the vast tail of the chief
curved inward for the spring, and he, the scorner, launched himself
backwards a hundred fathoms at a bound. After him, leaping like any
salmon in a spate, came the terrible old warrior, the smitten waves
boiling around him as he dashed them aside in his tremendous pursuit.
But herein the pursued had the advantage, for it is a peculiarity of
the sperm whale that while he cannot see before him, his best arc of
vision is right astern. So that the pursuer must needs be guided by
sound and the feel of the water, and the very vigour of his chase
was telling far more upon his vast bulk than upon the lither form
of his flying enemy. In this matter the monarch’s wisdom was of no
avail, for experience could not tell him how advancing age handicaps
the strongest, and he wondered to find a numbness creeping along
his spine--to feel that he was growing weary. And suddenly, with an
eel-like movement the pursued one described a circle beneath the water,
rising swift as a dolphin springs towards his pursuer, and dashing
at the dangling, gleaming jaw. These two great balks of jaw met in
clashing contact, breaking off a dozen or so of the huge teeth, and
ripping eight or ten feet of the gristly muscle from the throat of
the aggressor. But hardly had they swung clear of each other than
the other two were fresh upon the scene, and while the youngest one
rested, they effectually combined to prevent their fast-weakening foe
from rising to breathe. No need now for them to do more, for the late
enormous expenditure of force had so drained his vast body of its prime
necessity that the issue of the fight was but a question of minutes.
Yet still he fought gallantly, though with lungs utterly empty--all the
rushing torrent of his blood growing fetid for lack of vitalising air.
At last, with a roar as of a cyclone through his head, he turned on his
side and yielded to his triumphant conquerors, who drew off and allowed
him to rise limply to the now quiet sea-surface. For more than an hour
he lay there prone, enduring all the agony of his overthrow, and seeing
far before him the long, lonely vista of his solitary wanderings, a
lone whale driven from his own, and nevermore to rule again.
Meanwhile the three had departed in search of their brother, smitten so
felly early in the fight that he had not since joined them. When they
found that which had been him it was the centre of an innumerable host
of hungry things that fled to air or sea-depths at their approach. A
glance revealed the manner of his end--a broken back, while already,
such had been the energy of the smaller sea people, the great framework
of his ribs was partly laid bare. They made no regrets, for the doing
of useless things finds no place in their scheme of things. Then the
younger said--
“So the question of overlordship lies between us three, and I am
unwilling that it should await settlement. I claim the leadership, and
am prepared here and now to maintain my right.”
This bold assertion had its effect upon the two hearers, who, after a
long pause, replied--
“We accept, O king, fully and freely, until the next battle-day
arrives, when the succession must be maintained by thee in ancient
form.”
So the matter was settled, and proudly the young monarch set off to
rejoin the waiting school. Into their midst he glided with an air of
conscious majesty, pausing in the centre to receive the homage and
affectionate caresses of the harem. No questions were asked as to the
whereabouts of the deposed sovereign, nor as to what had become of the
missing member of the brotherhood. These are things that do not disturb
the whale-people, who in truth have a sufficiency of other matters to
occupy their thoughts besides those inevitable changes that belong to
the settled order of things. The recognition complete, the new leader
glided out from the midst of his people, and pointing his massive front
to the westward moved off at a stately pace, on a straight course for
the coast of Japan.
Long, long lay the defeated one, motionless and alone. His exertions
had been so tremendous that every vast muscle band seemed strained
beyond recovery, while the torrent of his blood, befouled by his long
enforced stay beneath the sea, did not readily regain its normally
healthful flow. But on the second day he roused himself, and raising
his mighty head swept the unbroken circle of the horizon to satisfy
himself that he was indeed at last a lone whale. Ending his earnest
scrutiny he milled round to the southward and with set purpose and
steady fluke-beat started for the Aucklands. On his journey he passed
many a school or smaller “pod” of his kind, but in some mysterious
manner the seal of his loneliness was set upon him, so that he was
shunned by all. In ten days he reached his objective, ten days of
fasting, and impelled by fierce hunger ventured in closely to the
cliffs, where great shoals of fish, many seals, with an occasional
porpoise, came gaily careering down the wide-gaping white tunnel of
his throat into the inner darkness of dissolution. It was good to
be here, pleasant to feel once more that unquestioned superiority
over all things, and swiftly the remembrance of his fall faded from
the monster’s mind. By day he wandered lazily, enjoying the constant
easy procession of living food down his ever-open gullet; by night he
wallowed sleepily in the surf-torn margin of those jagged reefs. And
thus he came to enjoy the new phase of existence, until one day he rose
slowly from a favourite reef-patch to feel a sharp pang shoot through
his wide flank. Startled into sudden, violent activity, he plunged
madly around in the confined area of the cove wherein he lay in the
vain endeavour to rid himself of the smart. But he had been taken at a
disadvantage, for in such shallow waters there was no room to manœuvre
his vast bulk, and his wary assailants felt that in spite of his
undoubted vigour and ferocity he would be an easy prey. But suddenly he
headed instinctively for the open sea at such tremendous speed that the
two boats attached to him were but as chips behind him. He reached the
harbour’s mouth, and bending, swiftly sought the depths. Unfortunately
for him a huge pinnacle of rock rose sheer from the sea bed some
hundred fathoms below, and upon this he hurled himself headlong with
such fearful force that his massive neck was broken. And next day a
weary company of men were toiling painfully to strip from his body its
great accumulation of valuable oil, and his long career was ended.
THE CHUMS
What a depth of mystery is concealed in the phenomena of likes and
dislikes! Why, at first sight, we are attracted by one person and
repelled by another, independently, to all outward seeming, of personal
appearance or habits of observation. This is, of course, a common
experience of most people, but one of the strangest instances I have
ever known was in my own affection for Jack Stadey and all that grew
out of it.
Stadey was a Russian Finn, one of a race that on board ship has always
had the reputation of being a bit wizard-like, credited with the
possession of dread powers, such as the ability to raise or still a
storm, become invisible, and so on. The bare truth about the seafaring
Finns, however, is that they make probably the finest all-round
mariners in the world. No other sea-folk combine so completely all the
qualities that go to make up the perfect seaman. Many of them may be
met with who can build a vessel, make her spars, her sails, and her
rigging, do the blacksmith work and all the manifold varieties of odd
workmanship that go to complete a ship’s equipment, take her to sea,
and navigate her on soundest mathematical principles, and do all these
strange acts and deeds with the poorest, most primitive tools, and
under the most miserable, poverty-stricken conditions. But, as a rule,
they are not smart; they must be allowed to do their work in their
own way, at their own pace, and with no close scrutiny into anything
except results. Now, Jack Stadey was a typical Finn, as far as his slow
ungainly movements went, but none of that ability and adaptiveness
which is characteristic of his countrymen was manifest in him. To the
ordinary observer he was just a heavy, awkward “Dutchman,” who couldn’t
jump to save his life, and who would necessarily be put upon all the
heaviest, dirtiest jobs, while the sailorizing was being done by
smarter men. With a long, square head, faded blue eyes, and straggling
flaxen moustache, round shoulders, and dangling, crooked arms, he
seemed born to be the butt of his more favoured shipmates. Yet when I
first became acquainted with him in the fo’c’sle of the old Dartmouth,
outward bound to Hong Kong, something about him appealed to me, and we
became chums. The rest of the crew, with one notable exception, were
not bad fellows, and Jack shuffled along serenely through the voyage,
quite undisturbed by the fact that no work of any seamanlike nature
ever came to his share. I came in for a good deal of not ill-natured
chaff from the rest for my close intimacy with him, but it only had the
effect of knitting us closer together, for there is just that strain of
obstinacy about me that opposition only stiffens. And as I studied that
simple, childlike man, I found that he had a heart of gold, a nature
that had no taint of selfishness, and was sublimely unconscious of its
own worth.
We made the round voyage together, and on our return to London I
persuaded him to quit the gloomy environment of sailor-town to come
and take lodgings with me in a turning out of Oxford Street, whence we
could sally forth and find ourselves at once in the midst of clean,
interesting life, free from the filthy importunities of the denizens of
Shadwell that prey upon the sailor. My experiences of London life were
turned to good account in those pleasant days, all too short. Together
we did all the sights, and it would be hard to say which of us enjoyed
ourselves most. At last, our funds having dwindled to the last five
pounds, we must needs go and look for a ship. I had “passed” for second
mate, but did not try very hard to get the berth that my certificate
entitled me to take, and finally we both succeeded in getting berths
before the mast in a barque called the Magellan, bound for New Zealand.
To crown the common-sense programme we had been following out, we did a
thing I have never seen deep-water sailors do before or since--we took
a goodly supply of such delicacies on board with us as would, had we
husbanded them, have kept us from hunger until we crossed the line. But
sailor Jack, with all his faults, is not mean, and so all hands shared
in the good things until they were gone, which was in about three days.
To our great disgust, Jack and I were picked for separate watches, so
that our chats were limited to the second dog-watch, that pleasant time
between six and eight p.m. when both watches can fraternize at their
ease, and discuss all the queer questions that appeal to the sailor
mind.
Jack never complained, it wasn’t his habit, but, unknown to me, he
was having a pretty bad time of it in the starboard watch. Of course,
the vessel was short-handed--four hands in a watch to handle an
over-sparred brute of nearly a thousand tons--and as a consequence
Jack’s ungainly want of smartness was trying to his over-worked
watchmates, who were, besides, unable to understand his inability
or unwillingness to growl at the hardness of the common lot. The
chief man in that watch was a huge Shetlandman, Sandy Rorison, who,
broadly speaking, was everything that Jack was not. Six feet two in
his stocking vamps, upright as a lower mast, and agile as a leading
seaman on board a man-o’-war, there was small wonder that Sandy was
sorely irritated by the wooden movements of my deliberate chum. But
one day, when, relieved from the wheel, I came into the forecastle
for a “verse o’ the pipe,” I found Sandy bullying him in a piratical
manner. All prudential considerations were forgotten, and I interfered,
although it was like coming between a lion and his kill. Black with
fury, Sandy turned upon me, tearing off his jumper the while, and in
choking monosyllables invited me to come outside and die. I refused,
giving as my reason that I did not feel tired of life, and admitting
that I was fully aware of his ability to make cracker-hash of me. But
while he stood gasping, I put it to him whether, if he had a chum, any
consideration for his own safety would stop him from risking it in
the endeavour to save that chum from such a dog’s life as he was now
leading Jack Stadey. Well, the struggle between rage and righteousness
in that big rough man was painful to see. It lasted for nearly five
minutes, while I stood calmly puffing at my pipe with a numb sense of
“what must be will be” about me. Then suddenly the big fellow went and
sat down, buried his face in his hands, and was silent. I went about my
work unmolested, but for nearly a week there was an air of expectation
about the whole of us--a sense that an explosion might occur at any
moment. Then the tension relaxed, and I saw with quiet delight that
Rorison had entirely abandoned his hazing of Jack.
After a most miserable passage of a hundred and ten days we arrived at
our port, and almost immediately after came an opening for me to join
a fine ship as second mate. It could not be disregarded, although I
had to forfeit to the knavish skipper the whole of my outward passage
earnings for the privilege of being discharged. So Jack and I parted,
making no sign, as is the custom of men, of the rending pain of our
separation. When next I saw Jack, several years after, I had left the
sea, but on a periodical visit to the docks--a habit I was long curing
myself of--I met him, looking for a ship. How triumphantly I bore him
westward to my little home I need not say, but when in the course of
conversation I found that he and Rorison had been chums ever since I
left the Magellan, I was dumbfounded. The more because, in spite of
the change in Rorison after my risky interference on that memorable
afternoon, I had passed many unhappy hours, thinking, in my conceit and
ignorance of the nobleness of which the majority of human kind are
capable, given the proper opportunity for showing it, that Jack would
have but a sorry time of it after _I_ had left him. Malvolio thought
nobly of the soul, and I have had reason, God knows, to think nobly
of my fellow-men, even of those who upon a casual acquaintance seemed
only capable of exciting disgust. I believe that few indeed are the
men and women who have not within them the germ of as heroic deeds as
ever thrilled the hearts and moistened the eyes of mankind, although,
alas! myriads live and die wanting the occasion that could fructify the
germ. Made in His own image, although sorely battered out of the Divine
likeness, the Father does delight in showing how, in spite of the
distance men generally have placed between themselves and Him, the type
still persists, and self-sacrifice, soaring above the devilish cynicism
that affects to know no God but self-interest, blazes forth to show to
all who will but open their eyes that “God’s in His Heaven, all’s right
with the world.”
Two more strangely assorted chums surely seldom foregathered than
Sandy and Jack. I remember none in real life, though the big trooper
George Rouncewell and Phil have been immortalized by Dickens in “Bleak
House,” and the probability is that such a friendship had been known to
that marvellous man. How the bond between the Shetlandman and the Finn
gradually grew and toughened I had no means of knowing, for Jack was
a man of so few words, that even my eager questioning never succeeded
in drawing from him the information that I thirsted for. However, to
resume my story, the pair succeeded in obtaining berths in the same
ship again, a big iron clipper, the Theodosia, bound to Melbourne. I
did not succeed in meeting Sandy before they sailed, though I tried
hard in my scanty leisure to do so. But I determined that when they
returned I would have them both home to my little place, and devote
some of my holidays to entertaining them. I watched carefully the
columns of the Shipping Gazette for news of the ship, and succeeded in
tracing her home to Falmouth for orders from Port Pirie. Thence in due
time she departed, to my great disappointment, for Sunderland. And the
rest of the story must be told as I learned it long afterwards.
It was in the late autumn that they sailed from Falmouth, leaving
port on a glorious afternoon with that peerless weather known to
west-country fishermen as a “fine southerly.” Up the sparkling Channel
they sped with every stitch of canvas set, and a great contentment
reigning on board at the prospect of the approaching completion of the
voyage under such favourable conditions. Being foul, the Theodosia made
slow progress, but so steady was the favouring wind that in two days
she picked up her Channel pilot off Dungeness. He was hardly on board
before a change came. One of those sudden gales came howling down the
stern North Sea, and gradually the labouring ship was stripped of her
wings, until in a perfect whirl of freezing spindrift she was groping
through the gloom across the Thames estuary. But no uneasiness was
felt, because the pilot was on board, and the confidence felt in the
well-known skill and seamanship of those splendid mariners makes even
the most timid of deep-water sailors feel secure under their charge.
No man is infallible, however, and just before midnight a shock,
which threw all hands, then standing by to wear ship, off their feet,
brought the huge vessel up all standing. Not many minutes were needed
to show every man on board that she was doomed. Lying as she was on
the weather edge of the Galloper Sand (though her position was unknown
even to the pilot), she was exposed to the full fury of the gale, and
the blue lights and rockets made but the faintest impression upon the
appalling blackness. All hands worked with feverish energy to free the
long-disused boats from their gripes, although they were often hurled
headlong from this task by the crushing impact of those inky masses
of water that rose in terrible might all around. And as the boats
were cleared, so they were destroyed until but one remained seaworthy
and afloat upon the lee-side, fast by the end of the forebrace. One
by one the beaten, bruised, and almost despairing men succeeded in
boarding that tiny ark of refuge as it strained and plunged like
a terrified creature striving to escape from the proximity of the
perishing leviathan. When it appeared that all hands were crowded into
the overburdened boat, the watchful skipper mounted the lee rail, and,
waiting his opportunity, leapt for his life.
“Cast off, cast off,” shouted a dozen voices as the captain struggled
aft to the place of command, but one cry overtopped them all, the
frenzied question of Rorison, “Where’s Jack Stadey?” A babel of
replies arose, but out of that tumult one fact emerged, he was not
among them. The next moment, as a mountainous swell lifted the boat
high above the ship’s rail, Rorison had leapt to his feet, and,
catching hold of the drooping mainbrace above his head, was hauling
himself back on board again. And the boat had gone. Doubtless in the
confusion, some man had succeeded in casting the end of the rope adrift
that held her, not knowing what had happened, so that the next vast
roller swept her away on its crest a hundred fathoms in an instant. The
wide mouth of the dark engulfed her. All unheeding the disappearance of
the boat, Rorison fought his way about the submerged and roaring decks,
peering with a seaman’s bat-like power of vision through the dark
for any sign of his chum. Buffeted by the scourging seas, conscious
that he was fast losing what little strength remained to him, he yet
persisted in his search until, with a cry of joy, he found poor Stadey
jammed between the fife-rail and the pumps, just alive, but with a
broken leg and arm. Not a word passed between them, but with a sudden
accession of vigour, Sandy managed to drag his chum aft and lash his
limp body to one of the poop hen-coops. He then cast another coop
adrift, and secured it to the side of the first. Having done this, he
lashed himself by Stadey’s side, and with one hand feeling the languid
pulsation of his chum’s heart, awaited the next comber that should
sweep their frail raft away into the hissing sea.
Next morning, under a sky of heavenly glory, two Harwich fishermen
found the tiny raft, still supporting the empty husks of those two
faithful souls, undivided even unto the end of their hard life, and
together entered into rest.
With these two exceptions all hands were saved.
ALPHONSO M’GINTY
Who is there among British seafarers that does not know the
“chain-locker”--that den just opposite the Mint like an exaggerated
bear-pit? The homeward-bounder, his heart light as thistle-down with
the first taste of liberty after his voyage’s long imprisonment,
takes no heed of its squalor; no, not even in the drear December
slushiness, following upon a Shadwell snowstorm. If he does glance
around shudderingly at the haggard faces of the unshipped for a moment,
the feel of the beloved half-sheet of blue foolscap ostentatiously
displayed in his club-fingered right hand brings the departing look of
satisfaction back swiftly enough. It is his “account of wages,” his
passport within the swing doors of the office, which he will presently
exchange for the few pieces of gold for which he has given such a
precious slice of his life.
But the outward-bounder, his hands thrust deep into empty pockets, the
bitter taste of begrudged bread parching his mouth, and the scowling
face of his boarding master refusing to pass from his mind’s eye; he it
is who feels the utter desolation of the crowded “chain-locker” corrode
his very soul. After a long day’s tramp around the docks, sneaking on
board vessels like a thief, and asking the mate for a “chance” with
bated breath, as if begging for pence, unsuccessful and weary, he
returns to this walled-in pit of gloom, and jealously eyes the company
of miserables like himself, as if in each one he saw a potential
snatcher of his last hope of a berth.
Outward-bounders have little to say to each other in the
“chain-locker.” They wait, not like honest labourers seeking legitimate
employment, but like half-tried prisoners awaiting sentence. This
characteristic is so universal that, although we who bided the coming
of the Gareth’s skipper had all got our discharges in, and so felt
reasonably sure of her, we had not exchanged half a dozen words among
the fourteen of us.
But there suddenly appeared in our midst a square-built, rugged-faced
man of middle height, whose grey eyes twinkled across his ruined
nose, and whose mouth had that droll droop of the lower lip that
shows a readiness, not only to laugh in and out of season, but almost
pathetically invites the beholder to laugh too. He it was who broke the
stony silence by saying in the richest brogue, “Is it all av us bhoys
that does be goin’ in the wan ship, I wondher?” Even the most morose
among us felt an inclination to smile, we hardly knew why, but just
then the swing door of the engaging office burst open, and a hoarse
voice shouted, “Crew o’ the Gareth here.”
The words, like some irresistible centripetal force, sucked in from the
remotest corner of the large area every man, and in a moment all of us,
who had, as we thought, secured our chances by lodging our discharges
beforehand, were seized with something of a panic lest we should lose
the ship after all. Heavens! how we thrust and tore our way into the
office, past the burly policeman who held every one of us at the pinch
of the door until he was satisfied of our right to enter. Once within,
we felt safe, and stood nervously fingering our caps while the clerk
gabbled over the usual formula, to which none of us gave the slightest
heed. “Signing on” began and proceeded apace, to the accompaniment of a
running fire of questions as to age, nationality, last ship, etc., to
which answers, if not promptly forthcoming, were, I am afraid, supplied
by the questioner. There was a subdued chuckle, and the man who had
spoken outside stood at the counter.
“What name?” snapped the clerk.
“Alphonso M’Ginty, yer anner,” was the answer. No exquisite witticism
ever raised a more wholesome burst of laughter. It positively
brightened that dull hole like a ray of sea-sunshine.
“How old?” said the clerk, in a voice still tremulous.
“God befrind me, I forgot! Say tirty-five, sor.”
“Your discharge says twenty-five?” returned the clerk.
“Ah yes, yer anner, but it’s said that for the last tirty years!”
“Isn’t it time it was altered then?” retorted the clerk, magisterial
again, as he entered fifty-five on the articles. The old fellow’s
quaint speech, added to an indefinable aureole of good humour about
him, had completely changed the sullen aspect of our crowd, so that
for the moment we quite forget that but fourteen of us were engaged to
take the 4000-ton ship Gareth to New Zealand first, and then to any
other part of the world, voyage not to exceed three years.
So, with even the Dutchmen laughing and chuckling in sympathy with
the fun they felt, but didn’t understand, we all dispersed with our
advance notes to get such discount as fate and the sharks would allow.
In good time we were all aboard, for ships were scarce, and all of us
anxious to get away. But when we saw the vast, gaunt hull well down
to Plimsoll’s Mark, and the four towering steel giants of masts with
their immense spreading branches, and thought of the handful we were to
manage them, we felt a colder chill than even the biting edge of the
bitter east wind had given us.
We mustered in the dark, iron barn of the fo’c’sle, and began selecting
bunks temporarily, until we were picked for watches, when our attention
was arrested by the voice of M’Ginty, saying--
“Bhoys!”
All turned towards him where he stood, with a bottle of rum and a
tea-cup, and no one needed a second call. When the bottle was empty,
and our hearts had gone out to the donor, he said, clearing his throat
once or twice--
“Bhoys, fergive me, I’m a ---- imposhtor. I broke me right knee-cap
an’ five ribs comin’ home from ’Frisco in the Lamech--fell from the
fore-t’galant yard--an’ I bin three months in Poplar Hospital. I can’t
go aloft, but I didn’t think what a crime it wuz goin’ to be agin ye
all until I see this awful over-sparred brute here. Don’t be harrd on
me, bhoys; ye wouldn’t have me starrve ashore, wud yez now, or fret me
poor owld hearrt out in the wurrkhouse afther forty-five year on the
open sea?”
He stopped and looked around distressfully, and in that moment all our
hearts warmed to him. We were a mixed crowd, of course, but nearly
half of us were British, and there would have been a stormy scene if
any of the aliens had ventured to raise a protest against M’Ginty’s
incapacity. We didn’t express our sympathy, but we felt it, and he with
native quickness knew that we did. And never from that day forward did
the brave old chap hear a word of complaint from any of us about having
to do his work.
Just then the voice of the bos’un sounded outside, “Turn to!” and as we
departed to commence work, although not a word was said, there was a
fierce determination among us to protect M’Ginty against any harshness
from the officers on account of his disablement. There was too much of
a bustle getting out of dock for any notice to be taken of his stiff
leg, which he had so cleverly concealed while shipping, but the mate
happening to call him up on to the forecastle head for something, his
lameness was glaringly apparent at once to the bos’un, who stood behind
him. For just a minute it looked like trouble as the bos’un began to
bluster about his being a ---- cripple, but we all gathered round, and
the matter was effectually settled at once.
We never regretted our consideration. For, while it was true that he
couldn’t get aloft, and those mighty sails would have been a handful
for double our number in a breeze of wind, there never was a more
willing, tireless worker on deck, and below he was a perfect godsend.
His sunny temper, bubbling fun, and inexhaustible stock of yarns, made
our grey lives happier than they had ever been at sea before. If we
would have allowed it, he would have been a slave to all of us, for
we carried no boys, and all the odd domestic jobs of the fo’c’sle had
to be done by ourselves. As it was, he was always doing something for
somebody, and as he was a thorough sailor in his general handiness and
ability, his services were highly appreciated. He made the Gareth a
comfortable ship, in spite of her manifold drawbacks.
In due time we reached the “roaring forties” and began to run the
easting down. The long, tempestuous stretch of the Southern Ocean lay
before us, and the prospect was by no means cheering. The Gareth,
in spite of her huge bulk, had given us a taste of her quality when
running before a heavy breeze of wind shortly after getting clear
of the Channel, and we knew that she was one of the wettest of her
class, a vessel that welcomed every howling sea as an old friend, and
freely invited it to range the whole expanse of her decks from poop
to forecastle. And, in accordance with precedent, we knew that she
would be driven to the last extremity of canvas endurance, not only in
the hope of making a quick passage, but because shortening sail after
really hard running was such an awful strain upon the handful of men
composing the crew. So that when once the light sails were secure, an
attempt would always be made to “hang on” to the still enormous spread
of sail remaining, until the gale blew itself out, or we had run out of
its vast area. But for some days the brave west wind lingered in its
lair, and we slowly crept to the s’uthard and east’ard with trumpery
little spurts of northerly and nor’-westerly breeze. We had reached 47°
S. and about 10° E. when, one afternoon, it fell calm.
One of the most magnificent sunsets imaginable spread its glories over
the western sky. Great splashes of gorgeous colouring stained the pale
blue of the heavens, and illuminated the fantastic crags and ranges
of cloud that lay motionless around the horizon, like fragments of a
disintegrated world. A long, listless swell came solemnly from the west
at regular intervals, giving the waiting ship a stately rhythmical
motion in the glassy waters, and making the immense squares of canvas
that hung straight as boards from the yards slam against the steel
masts with a sullen boom. Except for that occasionally recurring sound,
a solemn stillness reigned supreme, while the wide mirror of the ocean
reflected faithfully all the flaming tints of the sky. Quietly all of
us gathered on the fo’c’sle head for the second dog-watch smoke, but
for some time all seemed strangely disinclined for the desultory chat
that usually takes place at that pleasant hour. Pipes were puffed in
silence for half an hour, until suddenly M’Ginty broke the spell (his
voice sounding strangely clear and vibrant), by saying--
“I had a quare dhrame lasht night.”
No one stirred or spoke, and after a few meditative pulls at his pipe,
he went on--
“I dhreamt that I was a tiny gorsoon again, at home in owld Baltimore.
I’d been wandherin’ and sthrayin’, God alone knows where, fur a
dhreadful long while, it seemed, until at lasht, whin I wuz ready t’
die from sheer weariness an’ fright, I hearrd me dear mother’s sweet
voice cryin’, ‘Where’s Fonnie avic iver got to this long while?’
Oh!’twas as if an angel from hiven shpoke to me, an’ I cried wid all me
hearrt an’ me tongue, ‘Here, mother, here I am!’ An’ she gathered me
up in her arrums that wuz so soft an’ cosy, till I felt as if I was a
little tired chick neshtlin’ into its mother’s feathers in the snuggest
of nests. I didn’t go to sleep, I just let meself sink down, down
into rest, happy as any saint in glory. An’ thin I woke up wid a big,
tearin’ ache all over me poor owld broken-up body. But bad as that wuz,
’twuz just nothin’ at all to the gnawin’ ache at me hearrt.”
Silence wrapped us round again, for who among us could find any words
to apply to such a story as that? And it affected us all the more
because of its complete contrast to M’Ginty’s usual bright, cheery,
and uncomplaining humour. Not another word was spoken by any one until
the sharp strokes on the little bell aft cleft the still air, and, in
immediate response, one rose and smote the big bell hanging at the
break of the forecastle four double blows, ushering in the first watch
of the night. The watch on deck relieved wheel and look-out, and we
who were fortunate enough to have the “eight hours in,” lost no time
in seeking our respective bunks, since in those stern latitudes we
might expect a sudden call at any moment. We had hardly been asleep
five minutes, it seemed, when a hoarse cry came pealing in through
the fo’c’sle door of “All hands on deck! Shorten sail!” And as we all
started wide awake, we heard the furious voice of the southern tempest
tearing up the face of the deep, and felt the massive fabric beneath
our feet leaping and straining under the tremendous strain of her great
breadths of canvas, that we had left hanging so idly at eight bells.
Out into the black night we hurried, meeting the waiting mate at the
foremast, and answering his first order of “man the fore tops’ls
downhaul” with the usual repetition of his words. Weird cries arose as
we hauled with all our strength on the downhauls and spilling lines,
while overhead we could hear, even above the roar of the storm, the
deep boom of the topsails fiercely fighting against the restraining
gear. Then, with a hissing, spiteful snarl, came snow and sleet,
lashing us like shotted whips, and making the darkness more profound
because of the impossibility of opening the eyes against the stinging
fragments of ice. But, after much stumbling and struggling, we got the
four huge tops’ls down, and, without waiting for the order, started
aloft to furl, the pitiful incapacity of our numbers most glaringly
apparent. The pressure of the wind was so great that it was no easy
matter to get aloft, but clinging like cats, we presently found
ourselves (six of the port watch) on the fore topsailyard.
The first thing evident was that the great sail was very slightly
subdued by the gear; it hovered above the yard like a white balloon,
making it both difficult and dangerous to get out along the spar. The
storm scourged us pitilessly, the great round of the sail resisted all
our attempts to “fist” it, and we seemed as helpless as children. Some
bold spirits clutched the lifts, and, swinging above the sail, tried
to stamp a hollow into it with their feet; but against the increasing
fury of the tempest we seemed to be utterly impotent. We were so widely
separated, too, that each man appeared to be essaying a giant’s task
single-handed, and that horrible sense of fast-oozing strength was
paralyzing us. Feeling left our hands; we smote them savagely against
that unbending sail without sensation, and still we seemed no nearer
the conclusion of our task. But suddenly the ship gave a great lurch to
windward, and just for one moment the hitherto unyielding curve of the
sail quivered. In that instant every fist had clutched a fold, and with
a flash of energy we strained every sinew to conquer our enemy.
* * * * *
Tugging like a madman to get the sail spilled, I glanced sideways, and
saw to my horror, by a jagged flash of lightning, the rugged face of
M’Ginty.
[Illustration: He gasped “In manus tuas, Domine,” and fell.]
I had hardly recognized him when, with a roar like the combined voices
of a troop of lions, the sail tore itself away from us, and with
bleeding hands I clutched at the foot-rope stirrup as I fell back. But
at the same moment M’Ginty’s arms flew up. He caught at the empty gloom
above him, gasping, “_In manus tuas, Domine_----” and fell. Far beneath
us the hungry sea seethed and whirled, its white glare showing
ghastly against the thick darkness above. For two or three seconds I
hung as if irresolute whether to follow my poor old shipmate or not;
then the heavy flapping of the sail aroused me, and springing up again,
I renewed my efforts. The ship had evidently got a “wipe up” into the
wind, for the sail was now powerless against us, and in less than five
minutes it was fast, and we were descending with all speed to renew our
desperate fight with the mizen and jigger topsails. The decks were like
the sea overside, for wave after wave toppled inboard, and it was at
the most imminent risk to life and limb that we scrambled aft, quite a
sense of relief coming as we swung out of that turbulent flood into the
rigging again.
But I was almost past feeling now. A dull aching sense of loss clung
around my heart, and the patient, kindly face of my shipmate seemed
branded upon my eyes, as he had lifted it to the stormy skies in his
last supplicatory moan. I went about my work doggedly, mechanically;
indifferent to cold, fatigue, or pain, until, when at last she was
snugged down, and, under the fore lower topsails and reefed foresail,
was flying through the darkness like some hunted thing, I staggered
wearily into the cheerless fo’c’sle, dropped upon a chest, and stared
moodily at vacancy.
Somebody said, “Where’s M’Ginty?” That roused me. It seemed to put new
life and hope into me, for I replied quite brightly, “He’s gone to the
rest he was talking about in the dog-watch. He’ll never eat workhouse
bread, thank God!”
Eager questioning followed, mingled with utter amazement at his getting
aloft at all. But when all had said their say one feeling had been
plainly manifested--a feeling of deep thankfulness that such a grand
old sailor as our shipmate M’Ginty was where he fain would be, taking
his long and well-earned rest.
THE LAST STAND OF THE DECAPODS
Probably few of the thinking inhabitants of dry land, with all their
craving for tales of the marvellous, the gloomy, and the gigantic,
have in these later centuries of the world’s history given much
thought to the conditions of constant warfare existing beneath the
surface of the ocean. As readers of ancient classics well know, the
fathers of literature gave much attention to the vast, awe-inspiring
inhabitants of the sea, investing and embellishing the few fragments
of fact concerning them which were available with a thousand fantastic
inventions of their own naïve imaginations, until there emerged, chief
and ruler of them all, the Kraken, Leviathan, or whatever other local
name was considered to best convey in one word their accumulated
ideas of terror. In lesser degree, but still worthy compeers of the
fire-breathing dragon and sky-darkening “Rukh” of earth and sky, a
worthy host of attendant sea-monsters were conjured up, until, apart
from the terror of loneliness, of irresistible fury and instability
that the sea presented to primitive peoples, the awful nature of
its supposed inhabitants made the contemplation of an ocean journey
sufficient to appal the stoutest heart. A better understanding of
this aspect of the sea to early voyagers may be obtained from some
of the artistic efforts of those days than anything else. There you
shall see gigantic creatures with human faces, teeth like foot-long
wedges, armour-plated bodies, and massive feet fitted with claws like
scythe-blades, calmly issuing from the waves to prey upon the dwellers
on the margin, or devouring with much apparent enjoyment ships with
their crews, as a child crunches a stick of barley-sugar. Even such
innocent-looking animals as the seals were distorted and decorated
until the contemplation of their counterfeit presentment is sufficient
to give a healthy man the nightmare, while such monsters as really were
so terrible of aspect that they could hardly be “improved” upon were
increased in size until they resembled islands whereon whole tribes
might live. To these chimæras were credited all natural phenomena such
as waterspouts, whirlpools, and the upheaval of submarine volcanoes.
Some imaginative people went even farther than that by attributing the
support of the whole earth to a vast sea-monster; while others, like
the ancient Jews, fondly pictured Leviathan awaiting in the solitude
and gloom of ocean’s depths the glad day of Israel’s reunion, when the
mountain ranges of his flesh would be ready to furnish forth the family
feast for all the myriads of Abraham’s children.
Surely we may pause awhile to contemplate the overmastering courage of
the earliest seafarers, who, in spite of all these terrors, unappalled
by the comparison between their tiny shallops and the mighty waves
that towered above them, set boldly out from shore into the unknown,
obeying that deeply rooted instinct of migration which has peopled
every habitable part of the earth’s surface. Those who remember their
childhood’s dread of the dark, with its possible population of bogeys,
who have ever been lost in early youth in some lonely place, can have
some dim conception, though only a dim one, after all, of the inward
battle these ancients fought and won, until it became possible for the
epigram to be written in utmost truth--
“The seas but join the nations they divide.”
But, after all, we are not now concerned with the warlike doings
of men. It is with the actualities of submarine struggle we wish
to deal--those wars without an armistice, where to be defeated is
to be devoured, and from the sea-shouldering whale down to the
smallest sea-insect every living thing is carnivorous, dependent
directly upon the flesh of its neighbours for its own life, and
incapable of altruism in any form whatever, except among certain of
the mammalia and the sharks. In dealing with the more heroic phases
of this unending warfare, then, it must be said, once for all, that
the ancient writers had a great deal of reason on their side. They
distorted and exaggerated, of course, as all children do, but they did
not disbelieve. But moderns, rushing to the opposite extreme, have
neglected the marvels of the sea by the simple process of disbelieving
in them, except in the case of the sea-serpent, that myth which seems
bound to persist for ever and ever. Only of late years have the savants
of the world allowed themselves to be convinced of the existence of
a far more wondrous monster than the sea-serpent (if that “loathly
worm” were a reality), the original Kraken of old-world legends. Hugest
of all the mollusca, whose prevailing characteristics are ugliness,
ferocity, and unappeasable hunger, he has lately asserted himself so
firmly that current imaginative literature bristles with allusions to
him, albeit oftentimes in situations where he could by no possibility
be found. No matter, he has supplied a long-felt want; but the curious
fact remains that he is not a discovery, but a re-appearance. The
gigantic cuttle-fish of actual, indisputable fact is, in all respects
except size, the Kraken; and any faithful representation of him will
justify the assertion that no imagination could add anything to the
terror-breeding potentialities of his aspect. That is so, even when
he is viewed by the light of day in the helplessness of death or
disabling sickness, or in the invincible grip of his only conqueror.
In his proper realm, crouching far below the surface of the sea in
some coral cave or labyrinth of rocks, he must present a sight so
awful that the imagination recoils before it. For consider him but
a little. He possesses a cylindrical body reaching in the largest
specimens yet recorded as having been seen, a length of between
sixty and seventy feet, with an average girth of half that amount.
That is to say, considerably larger than a Pullman railway-car. Now,
this immense mass is of boneless gelatinous matter capable of much
greater distension than a snake; so that in the improbable event of
his obtaining an extra-abundant supply of food, it is competent to
swell to the occasion and still give the flood of digestive juices
that it secretes full opportunity to dispose of the burden with
almost incredible rapidity. Now, the apex of this mighty cylinder--I
had almost said “tail,” but remembered that it would give a wrong
impression, since it is the part of the monster that always comes first
when he is moving from place to place, is conical, that is to say, it
tapers off to a blunt point something like a whitehead torpedo. Near
this apex there is a broad fin-like arrangement looking much like the
body of a skate without its tail, which, however, is used strictly
for steering purposes only. So far there is nothing particularly
striking about the appearance of this mighty cylinder except in colour.
This characteristic varies in different individuals, but is always
reminiscent of the hues of a very light-coloured leopard; that is to
say, the ground is of a livid greenish white, while the detail is in
splashes and spots of lurid red and yellow, with an occasional nimbus
of pale blue around these deeper markings. But it is the head of the
monster that appals. Nature would seem in the construction of this
greatest of all molluscs to have combined every weapon of offence
possessed by the rest of the animal kingdom in one amazing arsenal,
disposing them in such a manner that not only are they capable of
terrific destruction, but their appearance defies adequate description.
The trunk at the head end is sheath-like, its terminating edges forming
a sort of collar around the vast cable of muscles without a fragment
of bone which connects it with the head. Through a large opening
within this collar is pumped a jet of water, the pressure of which
upon the surrounding sea is sufficiently great to drive the whole bulk
of the creature, weighing perhaps sixty or seventy tons, _backwards_
through the water, at the rate of sixteen to twenty miles per hour,
not in steady progression, of course, but by successive leaps. At
will, this propelling jet is deeply stained with sepia, a dark-brown
inky fluid, which, mingling with the encompassing sea, fills all the
neighbourhood of the monster with a gloom so deep that nothing, save
one of its own species, can see either to fight or whither to fly. The
head itself is of proportionate size. It is rounded underneath, and of
much lighter hue than the trunk. On either side of it is set an eye, of
such dimensions that the mere statement of them sounds like the efforts
of one of those grand old mediæval romancers, whose sole object was
to make their reader’s flesh creep. It is perfectly safe to say that
even in proportion to size, no other known creature has such organs of
vision as the cuttle-fish, for the pupils of such an one as I am now
describing are fully two feet in diameter. They are perfectly black,
with a dead white rim, and cannot be closed. No doubt their enormous
size is for the purpose of enabling their possessor to discern what is
going on amidst the thick darkness that he himself has raised, so that
while all other organisms are groping blindly in the gloom, he may work
his will among them. Then come the weapons which give the cuttle-fish
its power of destruction, the arms or tentacles. These are not eight
in number, as in the octopus, an ugly beast enough and spiteful
withal, but a babe of innocence compared with our present subject.
Every schoolboy should know that _octopus_ signifies an eight-armed or
eight-footed creature, and yet in nine cases out of ten where writers
of fiction and would-be teachers of fact are describing the deadly
doings of the gigantic cuttle-fish they call _him_ an octopus; whereas
he is nothing of the kind, for, in addition to the eight arms which
the octopus possesses, the cuttle-fish flaunts two, each of which is
double the length of the eight, making him a _decapod_. This confusion
is the more unpardonable, because even the most ancient of scribes
always spoke of this mollusc as the “ten-armed one,” while a reference
to any standard work on Natural History will show even the humbler
cuttle-fish with their full complement of arms--that is, ten. But this
is digression.
Our friend has, then, ten arms springing from the crown of his head, of
which eight are forty feet in length, and two are seventy to eighty.
The eight each taper outward from the head, from the thickness of a
stout man’s body at the base to the slenderness of a whip-lash at the
end. On their inner sides they are studded with saucer-like hollows,
each of which has a fringe of curving claws set just within its rim. So
that in addition to their power of holding on to anything they touch
by a suction so severe that it would strip flesh from bone, these
cruel claws, large as those of a full-grown tiger’s, get to work upon
the subject being held, lacerating and tearing until the quivering
body yields up its innermost secrets. Each of these destroying,
serpent-like arms is also gifted with an almost independent power of
volition. Whatever it touches it holds with an unreleasable grip, but
with wonderful celerity it brings its prey inwards to where, in the
centre of all those infernal purveyors lies a black chasm, whose edges
are shaped like the upper and lower mandibles of a parrot, and these
complete the work so well begun. The outliers, those two far-reaching
tentacles, unlike the busy eight, are comparatively slender from their
bases to near (within two feet or so of) their ends. There they expand
into broad paddle-like masses, thickly studded with _acetabulæ_, those
holding sucking-discs that garnish the inner arms for their entire
length. So, thus armed, this nightmare monstrosity crouches in the
darkling depths of ocean, like some unimaginable web, whereof every
line is alive to hold and tear. Its digestion is like a furnace of
dissolution, needing a continual inflow of flesh, and nothing living
that inhabits the sea comes amiss to its never-satisfied cravings. It
is very near the apex of the pyramid of interdependence into which
sea-life is built, but not quite. For at the summit is the sperm whale,
the monarch of all seas, whom man alone is capable of meeting in fair
fight and overcoming.
The head of the sperm whale is of heroic size, being in bulk quite
one-third of the entire body, but in addition to its size it has
characteristics that fit it peculiarly to compete with such a dangerous
monster as the gigantic decapod. Imagine a solid block of crude
indiarubber, between twenty and thirty feet in length, and eight feet
through, in shape not at all unlike a railway-carriage, but perfectly
smooth in surface. Fit this mass beneath with a movable shaft of solid
bone, twenty feet in length, studded with teeth, each protruding nine
inches, and resembling the points of an elephant’s tusks. You will then
have a fairly complete notion of the equipment with which the ocean
monarch goes into battle against the Kraken. And behind it lies the
warm blood of the mammal, the massive framework of bone belonging to
the highly developed vertebrate animal, governed by a brain impelled
by irresistible instinct to seek its sustenance where alone it can
be found in sufficiently satisfying bulk. And there for you are the
outlines of the highest form of animal warfare existing within our ken,
a conflict of Titans, to which a combat between elephants and rhinoceri
in the jungle is but as the play of schoolboys compared with the
gladiatorial combats of Ancient Rome.
This somewhat lengthy preamble is necessary in order to clear the
way for an account of the proceedings leading up to the final
subjugation of the huge molluscs of the elder slime to the needs of
the great vertebrates like the whales, who were gradually emerging
into a higher development, and, finding new wants oppressing them,
had to obey the universal law, and fight for the satisfaction of
their urgent needs. Fortunately, the period with which we have to
deal was before chronology, so that we are not hampered by dates;
and, as the disposition of sea and land, except in its main features,
was altogether different to what we have long been accustomed to
regard as the always-existing geographical order of things, we need
not be greatly troubled by place considerations either. What must be
considered as the first beginning of the long struggle occurred when
some predecessors of the present sperm whales, wandering through the
vast morasses and among the sombre forests of that earlier world,
were compelled to recognize that the conditions of shore life were
rapidly becoming too onerous for them. Their immensely weighty bodies,
lumbering slowly as a seal over the rugged land surface, handicapped
them more and more in the universal business of life, the procuring
of food. Not only so, but as by reason of their slowness they were
confined for hunting-grounds to a very limited area, the slower
organism upon which their vast appetites were fed grew scarcer and
scarcer, in spite of the fecundity of that prolific time. And in
proportion as they found it more and more difficult to get a living,
so did their enemies grow more numerous and bolder. Vast dragon-like
shapes, clad in complete armour that clanged as the wide-spreading
bat-wings bore them swiftly through the air, descended upon the
sluggish whales, and with horrid rending by awful shear-shaped jaws,
plentifully furnished with foot-long teeth, speedily stripped from
their gigantic bodies the masses of succulent flesh. Other enemies,
weird of shape and swift of motion although confined to the earth,
fastened also upon the easily attainable prey that provided flesh in
such bountiful abundance, and was unable to fight or flee.
Well was it, then, for the whales that, living always near the sea,
they had formed aquatic habits, finding in the limpid element a medium
wherein their huge bulk was rather a help than a hindrance to them.
Gradually they grew to use the land less and less as they became more
and more accustomed to the food provided in plenty by the inexhaustible
ocean. Continual practice enabled them to husband the supplies of air
which they took in on the surface for use beneath the waves; and,
better still, they found that whereas they had been victims to many
a monster on land whose proportions and potentialities seemed far
inferior to their own, here in their new element they were supreme,
nothing living but fled from before them. But presently a strange
thing befell them. As they grew less and less inclined to use the dry
land, they found that their powers of locomotion thereon gradually
became less and less also, until at last their hind legs dwindled
away and disappeared. Their vast and far-reaching tails lost their
length, and their bones spread out laterally into flexible fans of
toughest gristle, with which they could propel themselves through the
waves at speeds to which their swiftest progress upon land had been
but a snail’s crawl. Also their fore legs grew shorter and wider,
and the separation of the toes disappeared, until all that was left
of these once ponderous supports were elegant fan-like flippers of
gristle, of not the slightest use for propulsion, but merely acting
as steadying-vanes to keep the whole great structure in its proper
position according to the will of the owner. All these radical physical
changes, however, had not affected the real classification of the
whales. They were still mammals, still retained in the element which
was now entirely their habitat the high organization belonging to the
great carnivora of the land. Therefore it took them no long period of
time to realize that in the ocean they would be paramount, that with
the tremendous facilities for rapid movement afforded them by their
new habitat they were able to maintain that supremacy against all
comers, unless their formidable armed jaws should also become modified
by degeneration into some such harmless cavities for absorbing food as
are possessed by their distant relatives, the mysticetæ, or toothless
whales.
With a view to avoiding any such disaster, they made good use of their
jaws, having been taught by experience that the simple but effectual
penalty for the neglect of any function, whether physical or mental,
was the disappearance of the organs where such functions had been
performed. But their energetic use of teeth and jaws had a result
entirely unforeseen by them. Gradually the prey they sought, the
larger fish and smaller sea-mammals, disappeared from the shallow seas
adjacent to the land, from whence the whales had been driven; and in
order to satisfy the demands of their huge stomachs, they were fain to
follow their prey into deeper and deeper waters, meeting as they went
with other and stranger denizens of those mysterious depths, until
at last the sperm whale met the Kraken. There in his native gloom,
vast, formless, and insatiable, brooded the awful Thing. Spread like
a living net whereof every mesh was armed, sensitive and lethal,
this fantastic complication of horrors took toll of all the sea-folk,
needing not to pursue its prey, needing only to lie still, devour, and
grow. Sometimes, moved by mysterious impulses, one of these chimæras
would rise to the sea-surface and bask in the beams of the offended
sun, poisoning the surrounding air with its charnel-house odours, and
occasionally finding within the never-resting nervous clutching of its
tentacles some specimens of the highest, latest product of creation,
man himself. Ages of such experiences as these had left the Kraken
defenceless as to his body. The absence of any necessity for exertion
had arrested the development of a backbone; the inability of any of
the sea-people to retaliate upon their sateless foe had made him
neglect any of those precautions that weaker organisms had provided
themselves with, and even the cloud of sepia with which all the race
were provided, and which often assisted the innocent and weaker members
of the same great family to escape, was only used by these masters of
the sea to hide their monstrous lures from their prey.
Thus on a momentous day a ravenous sperm whale, hunting eagerly for
wherewithal to satisfy his craving, suddenly found himself encircled
by many long, cable-like arms. They clung, they tore, they sucked.
But whenever a stray end of them flung itself across the bristling
parapet of the whale’s lower jaw it was promptly bitten off, and a
portion having found its way down into the craving stomach of the big
mammal, it was welcomed as good beyond all other food yet encountered.
Once this had been realized, what had originally been an accidental
entrapping changed itself into a vigorous onslaught and banquet. True,
the darkness fought for the mollusc, but that advantage was small
compared with the feeling of incompetence, of inability to make any
impression upon this mighty impervious mass that was moving as freely
amid the clinging embarrassments of those hitherto invincible arms
as if they were only fronds of seaweed. And then the foul mass of
the Kraken found itself, contrary to all previous experience, rising
involuntarily, being compelled to leave its infernal shades, and,
without any previous preparation for such a change of pressure, to
visit the upper air. The fact was that the whale, finding its stock
of air exhausted, had put forth a supreme effort to rise, and found
that, although unable to free himself from those enormous cables, he
was actually competent to raise the whole mass. What an upheaval! Even
the birds that, allured by the strong carrion scent, were assembling
in their thousands, fled away from that appalling vision, their wild
screams of affright filling the air with lamentation. The tormented
sea foamed and boiled in wide-spreading whirls, its deep sweet blue
changed into an unhealthy nondescript tint of muddy yellow as the wide
expanse of the Kraken’s body yielded up its corrupt fluids, and the
healthful breeze did its best to disperse the bad smells that rose from
the ugly mass. Then the whale, having renewed his store of air, settled
down seriously to the demolition of his prize. Length after length of
tentacle was torn away from the central crown and swallowed, gliding
down the abysmal throat of the gratified mammal in snaky convolutions
until even that great store-room would contain no more. The vanquished
Kraken lay helplessly rolling upon the wave while its conqueror in
satisfied ease lolled near, watching with good-humoured complacency the
puny assault made upon that island of gelatinous flesh by the multitude
of smaller hungry things. The birds returned, reassured, and added by
their clamour to the strangeness of the scene, where the tribes of air
and sea, self-bidden to the enormous banquet, were making full use of
their exceptional privilege. So the great feast continued while the
red sun went down and the white moon rose in placid beauty. Yet for
all the combined assaults of those hungry multitudes the tenacious
life of that largest of living things lay so deeply seated that when
the rested whale resumed his attentions he found the body of his late
antagonist still quivering under the attack of his tremendous jaws.
But its proportions were so immense that his utmost efforts left store
sufficient for at least a dozen of his companions, had they been
there, to have satisfied their hunger upon. And, satisfied at last,
he turned away, allowing the smaller fry, who had waited his pleasure
most respectfully, to close in again and finish the work he had so well
begun.
Now, this was a momentous discovery indeed, for the sperm whales
had experienced, even when fish and seals were plentiful, great
difficulty in procuring sufficient food at one time for a full meal,
and the problem of how to provide for themselves as they grew and
multiplied had become increasingly hard to solve. Therefore this
discovery filled the fortunate pioneer with triumph, for his high
instincts told him that he had struck a new source of supply that
promised to be inexhaustible. So, in the manner common to his people,
he wasted no time in convening a gathering of them as large as could
be collected. Far over the placid surface of that quiet sea lay gently
rocking a multitude of vast black bodies, all expectant, all awaiting
the momentous declaration presently to be made. The epoch-making
news circulated among them in perfect silence, for to them has from
the earliest times been known the secret that is only just beginning
to glimmer upon the verge of human intelligence, the ability to
communicate with one another without the aid of speech, sight, or
touch--a kind of thought transference, if such an idea as animal
thought may be held allowable. And having thus learned of the treasures
held in trust for them by the deep waters, they separated and went,
some alone and some in compact parties of a dozen or so, upon their
rejoicing way.
But among the slimy hosts of the gigantic Mollusca there was raging
a sensation unknown before--a feeling of terror, of insecurity born
of the knowledge that at last there had appeared among them a being
proof against the utmost pressure of their awful arms, who was too
great to be devoured, who, on the other hand, had evinced a greedy
partiality for devouring them. How this information became common
property among them it is impossible to say, since they dwelt alone,
each in his own particular lair, rigidly respected by one another,
because any intrusion upon another’s domains was invariably followed
by the absorption of either the intruder or the intruded upon by the
stronger of the two. This, although not intended by them, had the
effect of vastly heightening the fear with which they were regarded by
the smaller sea-folk, for they took to a restless prowling along the
sea-bed, enwreathing themselves about the mighty bases of the islands,
and invading cool coral caverns where their baleful presence had been
till then unknown. Never before had there been such a panic among the
multitudinous sea-populations. What could this new portent signify?
Were the foundations of the great deep again about to be broken up, and
the sea-bed heaved upward to replace the tops of the towering mountains
on dry land? There was no reply, for there were none that could answer
questions like these.
Still the fear-smitten decapods wandered, seeking seclusion from the
coming enemy, and finding none to their mind. Still the crowds of
their victims rushed blindly from shoal to shoal, plunging into depths
unfitted for them, or rising into shallows where their natural food was
not. And the whole sea was troubled, until at last there appeared, grim
and vast, the advance-guard of the sperm whales, and hurled itself with
joyful anticipation upon the shrinking convolutions of those hideous
monsters that had so long dominated the dark places of the sea. For the
whales it was a time of feasting hitherto without parallel. Without any
fear, uncaring to take even the most elementary precautions against a
defeat which they felt to be an impossible contingency, they sought
out and devoured one after another of these vast uglinesses, already
looked upon by them as their natural provision, their store of food
accumulated of purpose against their coming. Occasionally, it is true,
some rash youngster, full of pride, and rejoicing in his pre-eminence
over all life in the depths, would hurl himself into a smoky network of
far-spreading tentacles which would wrap him round so completely that
his jaws were fast bound together, his flukes would vainly essay to
propel him any whither, and he would presently perish miserably, his
cable-like sinews falling slackly and his lungs suffused with crimson
brine. Even then, the advantage gained by the triumphant Kraken was a
barren one, for in every case the bulk of the victim was too great, his
body too firm in its build, for the victor, despite his utmost efforts,
to succeed in devouring his prize. So that the disappointed Kraken
had perforce to witness the gradual disappearance of his lawful prize
beneath the united efforts of myriads of tiny sea-scavengers, secure in
their insignificance against any attack from him, and await with tremor
extending to the remotest extremity of every tentacle, the retribution
that he felt sure would speedily follow.
This desultory warfare was waged for long, until, driven by despair
to a community of interest unknown before, the Krakens gradually
sought one another out with but a single idea--that of combining
against the new enemy; for, knowing to what an immense size their
kind could attain in the remoter fastnesses of ocean, they could
not yet bring themselves to believe that they were to become the
helpless prey of these new-comers, visitors of yesterday, coming from
the cramped acreage of the land into the limitless fields of ocean,
and invading the immemorial freeholds of its hitherto unassailable
sovereigns. From the remotest recesses of the ocean they came, that
grisly gathering--came in ever-increasing hosts, their silent progress
spreading unprecedented dismay among the fairer inhabitants of the sea.
Figure to yourselves, if you can, the advance of this terrible host.
But the effort is vain. Not even Martin, that frenzied delineator of
the frightful halls of hell, the scenes of the Apocalypse, and the
agonies of the Deluge, could have done justice to the terrors of such
a scene. Only dimly can we imagine what must have been the appearance
of those vast masses of writhing flesh, as through the palely gleaming
phosphorescence of the depths they sped backwards in leaps of a hundred
fathoms each, their terrible arms, close-clustered together, streaming
behind like Medusa’s hair magnified ten thousand times in size, and
with each snaky tress bearing a thousand mouths instead of one.
So they converged upon the place of meeting, an area of the sea-bed
nowhere more than 500 fathoms in depth, from whose rugged floor rose
irregularly stupendous columnar masses of lava hurled upwards by the
cosmic forces below in a state of incandescence and solidified as they
rose, assuming many fantastic shapes, and affording perfect harbourage
to such dire scourges of the sea as were now making the place their
rendezvous. For, strangely enough, this marvellous portion of the
submarine world was more densely peopled with an infinite variety
of sea-folk than any other; its tepid waters seemed to bring forth
abundantly of all kinds of fish, crustacea, and creeping things. Sharks
in all their fearsome varieties prowled greasily about, scenting
for dead things whereon to gorge, shell-fish from the infinitesimal
globigerina up to the gigantic clam whose shells were a yard each in
diameter; crabs, lobsters, and other freakish varieties of crustacea
of a size and ugliness unknown to day lurked in every crevice, while
about and among all these scavengers flitted the happy, lovely fish
in myriads of glorious hues matching the tender shades of the coral
groves that sprang from the summits of those sombre lava columns
beneath. Hitherto this happy hunting-ground had not been invaded by
the sea-mammals. None of the air-breathing inhabitants of the ocean
had ventured into its gloomy depths, or sought their prey among the
blazing shallows of the surface-reefs, although no more favourable
place for their exertions could possibly have been selected over all
the wide sea. It had long been a favourite haunt of the Kraken, for
whom it was, as aforesaid, an ideal spot, but now it was to witness a
sight unparalleled in ocean history. Heralded by an amazing series of
under-waves, the gathering of monsters drew near. They numbered many
thousands, and no one in all their hosts was of lesser magnitude than
sixty feet long by thirty in girth of body alone. From that size they
increased until some--the acknowledged leaders--discovered themselves
like islands, their cylindrical carcases huge as that of an ocean
liner, and their tentacles capable of overspreading an entire village.
In concentric rings they assembled, all heads pointing outward, the
mightiest within, and four clear avenues through the circles left for
coming and going. Contrary to custom, but by mutual consent, all the
tentacles lay closely arranged in parallel lines, not outspread to
every quarter of the compass, and all a-work. They looked, indeed, in
their inertia and silence, like nothing so much as an incalculable
number of dead squid of enormous size neatly laid out at the whim of
some giant’s fancy. Yet communication between them was active; a subtle
interchange of experiences and plans went briskly on through the medium
of the mobile element around them. The elder and mightier were full of
disdain at the reports they were furnished with, utterly incredulous as
to the ability of any created thing to injure them, and, as the time
wore on, an occasional tremor was distinctly noticeable through the
whole length of their tentacles, which boded no good to their smaller
brethren. Doubtless but little longer was needed for the development
of a great absorption of the weaker by the stronger, only that,
darting into their midst like a lightning streak, came a messenger
squid, bearing the news that a school of sperm whales, numbering at
least ten thousand, were coming at top-speed direct for their place of
meeting. Instantly to the farthest confines of that mighty gathering
the message radiated, and as if by one movement there uprose from the
sea-bed so dense a cloud of sepia that for many miles around the clear
blue of the ocean became turbid, stagnant, and foul. Even the birds
that hovered over those dark-brown waves took fright at this terrible
phenomenon, to them utterly incomprehensible, and with discordant
shrieks they fled in search of sweeter air and cleaner sea. But below
the surface under cover of this thickest darkness there was the silence
of death.
Twenty miles away, under the bright sunshine, an advance-guard of about
a hundred sperm whales came rushing on. Line abreast, their bushy
breath rising like the regular steam-jets from a row of engines, they
dashed aside the welcoming wavelets, every sense alert, and full of
eagerness for the consummation of their desires. Such had been their
despatch that throughout the long journey of 500 leagues they had not
once stayed for food, so that they were ravenous with hunger as well
as full of fight. They passed, and before the foaming of their swift
passage had ceased, the main body, spread over a space of thirty miles,
came following on, the roar of their multitudinous march sounding like
the voice of many waters. Suddenly the advance-guard, with stately
elevation of the broad fans of their flukes, disappeared, and by one
impulse the main body followed them. Down into the depths they bore,
noting with dignified wonder the absence of all the usual inhabitants
of the deep, until, with a thrill of joyful anticipation which set all
their masses of muscle a-quiver, they recognized the scent of the prey.
No thought of organized resistance presented itself; without a halt,
or even the faintest slackening of their great rush, they plunged
forward into the abysmal gloom; down, down withal into that wilderness
of waiting devils. And so, in darkness and silence like that of the
beginning of things, this great battle was joined. Whale after whale
succumbed, anchored to the bottom by such bewildering entanglements,
such enlacement of tentacles, that their vast strength was helpless
to free them; their jaws were bound hard together, and even the wide
sweep of their flukes gat no hold upon the slimy water. But the
Decapods were in evil case. Assailed from above while their groping
arms writhed about below, they found themselves more often locked in
unreleasable hold of their fellows than they did of their enemies. And
the quick-shearing jaws of those enemies shredded them into fragments,
made nought of their bulk, revelled and frolicked among them, slaying,
devouring, exulting. Again and again the triumphant mammals drew off
for air and from satiety, went and lolled upon the sleek oily surface,
in water now so thick that the fiercest hurricane that ever blew would
have failed to raise a wave thereon.
So through a day and a night the slaying ceased not, except for
these brief interludes, until those of the Decapods left alive had
disentangled themselves from the débris of their late associates and
returned with what speed they might to depths and crannies, where they
fondly hoped their ravenous enemies could never come. They bore with
them the certain knowledge that from henceforth they were no longer
lords of the sea, that instead of being, as hitherto, devourers of all
things living that crossed the radius of their outspread toils, they
were now and for all time to be the prey of a nobler race of creatures,
a higher order of being, and that at last they had taken their rightful
position as creatures of usefulness in the vast economy of Creation.