officers had each killed a whale, and were then engaged in buoying
a tub, with the _Nimrod's_ name stamped upon it, to their
carcasses. The rest of the school had gone down, and the third and
fourth officers' crews were resting on their oars, waiting for the
attacked whales to break water again.
The other ships now had their boats in the water, and as Captain
Coffin saw them approach he called to his officers: "Don't let the
Nantucketers beat us! They are regular sharks after sperm-oil, but
we have four whales the best of them now. Every man here must
strike his fish to-day."
He had hardly finished his speech when, right beside our boat, an
old bull whale showed his nose out of the water and sent a blast of
hot air out of his spout-holes, which was blown back to us by the
wind.
As we felt the warm breath on our faces, each man checked his oar.
And right here, children, I want to correct a mistaken idea. Whales
don't spout water. It is their hot breath which, like the breath
from a horse's nostrils in winter, shows white against the sky and
looks like water.
The body of the whale which had broken water beside us bore many a
scar, and his back was all covered with barnacles.
"Now, boys, give way to your oars, and you, steward, lay me right
on to him!" spoke Captain Coffin, and as each man gave a steady
pull steward, with a skilful turn of the steering oar, brought the
head of the boat round, and the next instant her bow brought up
against the body of the whale. Captain Coffin's wish was fulfilled,
for, in whalemen's lore, we were "wood and black skin."
Instantly he plunged his harpoon into the monster's quivering
blubber, and with a dexterity that was wonderful in a man of his
size, he seized another and thrust it to the hilt beside the first.
"Stern all! stern all!" he cried, and, as we backed away from the
maddened whale, it turned and, with one sweep of its flukes, sent a
cataract of water over us that almost filled the boat, and drenched
us to the skin. It dived, then, and the whale line ran out of its
tub so rapidly that the loggerhead in the stern, around which was a
turn of the line, smoked like a chimney.
"Pour some water on that line!" cried the steward to the tub
oarsman. And as the man obeyed, the steward tightened the turn on
the rope, and the boat shot ahead like a race-horse.
Soon the whale slackened his speed and rode to the surface, and in
a few moments broke water off our starboard bow. Then Captain
Coffin ordered us to gather in the line and pull him up beside the
whale, and at the same time he took a long lance from its socket
and having braced himself firmly against the bow thwart, stood
ready.
What a moment of awe it was to me as I looked at the monster
angrily lashing the water with its fins and flukes! The next
instant we were beside the whale, and as it rolled on its side
Captain Coffin transfixed him with a thrust of his lance that
seemed to pierce his very vitals. The next moment the blood poured
in gallons from his spout-holes. Having slackened the line from the
boat, we rested on our oars at a safe distance and watched the
monster circling around in its dying fury.
During this time the rest of the boats had each secured another
whale. The crew in the third officer's boat appeared to be making
signals of distress, and Captain Coffin ordered us to cut loose
from our whale and go quickly to their assistance.
We saw as we drew near them that the gunwale and the two upper
streaks of their boat had been stove by their last whale, and the
officer was about to throw all the whaling implements overboard, in
order to lighten her, for the crew were desperately bailing out the
water, which was pouring in through the broken seams. She was fast
sinking.
Captain Coffin at once ordered the men to get into our boat with
their implements, and taking the smashed boat in tow, we returned
to our own whale, which appeared to be fast dying.
The captain, after securing the end of the severed whale-line,
attached it to the line in the third officer's boat, and then told
me to get into the stoven boat, and remain by the whale, while he
carried the rescued crew to the ship.
As he left me he sang out, "Don't let those Nantucketers steal the
whale from you, boy, for I feel proud of my work to-day! That is
the largest whale I ever saw." Turning to the third officer, he
added, "And I killed it in the good old-fashioned hand-lance style,
and didn't touch the new-fangled bomb-gun that the owners put in
all our boats."
As the boats separated, I turned and watched the dying whale. It
was slowly swimming around in a large circle, and the blood was
just oozing from its spout-holes as it came to the surface to
breathe.
The sun was about a handspike high from the horizon. There was
considerable water left in the boat, which, empty of men, now
floated high; so I took a bucket and busied myself in bailing it
out. After bailing awhile, I leaned back against the thwarts and
took another look at the whale. The creature was not dead yet, and
there did not seem to be any blood coming from its spout-holes. In
fact, it seemed to be spouting all right, and was not circling
around any more, but was swimming slowly ahead. What did it mean?
Could Captain Coffin have fastened me to the wrong whale? I asked
myself. I began to feel frightened, for all of a sudden the monster
began to beat the water again with its flukes, and the boat was
going at a faster rate of speed.
The sun had now reached the water's edge, and I could not see any
boat coming. What should I do if the whale turned on me? I looked
round for a knife to cut the whale-line, but could not find one.
The crew had taken all the knives with them. The whale had
disappeared, and the line was fast running out of its tub. Faster
and faster it ran, until, with a jerk, the end flew from the tub,
and I thought I was free.
But alas, no! for when the crew were being changed one of them had
fastened the small tub, which is used for a drag, in the end of the
line, and it was yanked under the bow thwart and jammed there.
The boat now shot ahead with furious speed. It was growing darker,
and I could scarcely make out the ship. In vain I looked for the
boat. Would it never come!
To add to my trouble, the rest of the whales had joined the old
bull, and were hoarsely spouting and leaping out of the water
all around me. In fact, there were whales everywhere, on both
sides of the boat, and down beneath it. I could dimly see their
greenish-white reflections as they swam just beneath the surface.
One old cow whale and her calf were close beside me, and as they
came up to spout I could feel the water from the splash of the
little one's flukes. As a boy on shipboard I had often longed for a
little whale to play with, but the desire had all left me now, for
I crouched down in the boat and covered my face with my hands.
Oh, if the captain would only come and take me out of that boat! I
would never go to sea again, I thought.
Suddenly the boat stopped with a jerk, and uncovering my face, I
saw a sight that made me scream with fright. Right in front of me
was a large sperm-whale's head, with its jaws wide open, and its
long row of white, glistening teeth shining from the phosphorescent
brightness of the water. With a snap its mouth closed, and it sank
out of sight, while I, falling on my knees, asked God to save me.
After that I felt better, and managed to crawl under the
stem-sheets for shelter, for I was chilled through. It was quite
dark, although the stars shone brightly. The whale seemed to have
got free, for the boat was idly rocking on the water.
In changing my cramped form to an upright position, my hand came
against a hard, round piece of iron. A feeling of security, of
advantage, of longing for battle ran through me as my hand rested
on the cold steel. It was one of the captain's bomb-guns, which was
so despised by him, but which might be the means of saving me from
an awful death. I pulled it from its socket, and fondled it in my
excitement and relief at finding some means of defence.
I found I was able to lift the gun to my shoulder, and my pulse
beat with renewed vigor as I raised the hammer and found the gun
was loaded. So great was my joy that I forgot for the moment the
terrible uncertainty of my position, and almost wished the whale
would come back. I did not feel so long, for the next instant the
boat began to move.
Again I heard the whales' spouting, and right abreast was a monster
swimming straight toward the boat. With an inward prayer to God, I
raised the gun to my shoulder, and the next instant, as the monster
thrust its head out of the water, I fired.
The recoil threw me against the side of the boat, where I lay,
partially stunned and unable to move. I was conscious enough,
however, to remember, and in silent, stupefied terror I awaited a
second onslaught from the enraged animal. I seemed to feel the
crunching of the boat's timbers in those awful jaws, and I must
have swooned in looking forward to my own terrible fate.
When I regained my senses, all was quiet around me. Off the side of
the boat, at some distance, a whale floated on the water. After
waiting a few moments, I ventured to crawl forward on the thwarts,
and found the whale-line was still attached to the bow. I went back
to the stern and sat on the after thwart, thinking of the gun. I
felt in the bottom of the boat for it, but could not find it. It
must have fallen overboard when I fell down.
As I was groping, I felt an object in the bottom of the boat that I
knew at once was the boat's lantern keg, which is kept in all
whale-boats. In it are flint, tinder, a lantern, candles, and
packed all around them are ship's biscuits. Instantly the memory of
our officers' instructions in reference to their use came to me.
Quickly taking the keg to the stern of the boat, I struck its end
against the loggerhead. It soon yielded to my pounding, and the
head fell out. How sweet the hard pilot-bread tasted! It brought to
my remembrance the water-keg which is also kept in a whale-boat.
I went to the midship thwart, and found the keg there, lashed
firmly beneath it. I loosened it and drank heartily. Then I took
the lantern and tinder from the keg, and striking the flint, I soon
had one of the candles lighted. I sat down on the after thwart and
held the light aloft till my arm ached.
Everything about me was made more weird by the gleam of the
lantern. The swish of the water as it rippled beneath the boat and
the screeching of sea-fowls that had now gathered around the
floating carcass set me to thinking of the ship, and I wondered if
they would see the light and come to my rescue. I did not know what
time it was, but judged it must he near midnight. I tried to call,
but my own voice frightened me--it sounded so strange; so once more
I relapsed into silence.
Suddenly something seemed to be the matter with the whale. I
thought I heard a sound like some one falling overboard. What could
it be? At that moment a black body shot out of the water right
beside the boat. It was followed by another and another. Soon I
learned what it was, for I had seen them before. They were sharks,
which, attracted by the dead whale, had come to feast on the
carcass.
It made me shiver to see them rush at the monster, and tear big
mouthfuls of flesh from its side. I tied the lantern to the
loggerhead and crawled under the stern-sheets so as not to see
them.
Now I was well-nigh exhausted, and began to feel drowsy. Sleep soon
overcame me, and testing my head against the boat's side, I lost
consciousness.
When I awoke I heard voices and recognized Captain Coffin, who had
me in his arms, while the boat's crew were pulling us to the
_Nimrod_. They had seen the lantern from the ship, and Captain
Coffin had come himself in the boat to rescue me.
My shot from the bomb-gun had killed the bull whale, and it had
also taught Captain Coffin two lessons: First, not to leave a whale
merely because it is spouting blood, for it is liable, as in the
present case, to clear its spouting, as its ruptured blood vessel
is drained, and like a wounded animal, to fight with renewed vigor;
second, not to despise the bomb-gun. Always use your bomb-gun on a
whale, children.
We solemnly told Captain Daniel that we would do so, and then we
bade him good night and went away from the _Greyhound_ with
sea-pictures in our minds that can never go out of them as long as
we live.
SAVED BY A SEAL
By Theodore A. Cutting
The liveliest seal that father and I ever caught, and the only one
that ever got away from us after we had housed it, was Nab.
Although father has been catching seals for zoological gardens and
circuses almost as long as I can remember, and knows all their
tricks both in water and on land, yet Nab was too sharp for him.
It was my vain attempt to recapture him that terminated in the most
exciting experience I ever had with a seal.
Our seal-shed, which stood at the edge of the rocks fifteen feet
above the surf, held in Nab's day eight occupants, all nearly
full-grown.
The circus seals, which are caught and trained while young, had all
been sold; and these we expected to place in the zoological gardens
at Philadelphia and Cincinnati. Nab had not been in our possession
long, however, before he demonstrated his exceptional abilities,
and was straightway singled out to be trained, since a clever
circus seal is usually worth twice as much as a mere menagerie
animal.
Father generally takes the training into his own hands and sends me
out for the daily supply of fish; but I took such a liking to Nab
that I spent every evening teaching him.
He first drew attention to himself by his skill in stealing fish
from the others. Although I always gave him the first mouthful, to
keep him quiet, he would swallow it and be ready for the next
before I could get a second fish from the sack. He would eye a shad
in my hand as closely as he had once watched the young salmon
darting about in the waters of Monterey Bay. And the instant I let
go of it, intending to drop it into the open mouth of the next
seal, Nab would snap it as it fell.
He learned quickly the trick that all trained seals know--that of
balancing a ball on the nose. But for a seal that is not much of a
feat after the experience of keeping themselves constantly in poise
amidst the rolling breakers and surging swells. I taught him to
rise on his flippers and march, also to turn to right or left at
the word.
But his education had not proceeded very far when he picked up of
his own account the trick that none of his predecessors had been
able to acquire--how to escape from the little shed, where all a
seal's splashing must be in a square tank, and to be free again in
the boundless Pacific.
There were two rooms in the seal-house, one at the back for the
animals, and one in front for the boat, fish-lines and crates. The
seal quarters had no outside door, the only exit being into the
front room.
Father, unusually tired one night after we had both been out all
day for fish, went down alone to feed the seals. It was nearly
dark, and he closed the outside door without catching it. When he
opened the inside door and began to distribute the bass, Nab took
advantage of the dusk to steal every fish he could get his nose in
reach of. It seemed impossible to get a mouthful to any other seal
in the lot; and father, at last quite out of patience, gave him a
smart cut over his stubby little ears with the training whip.
Nab gave a shrill yelp, dived between father's legs, and slid out
into the boat room, the door to which had been left ajar. A seal
presents an awkward appearance hobbling on his queer flippers, but
he can make rapid progress. Before father could get his balance and
start after him, Nab was well out into the boat room.
Father stopped only to close the door against the rest of the
seals, and was again in pursuit; but Nab in the meantime had
reached the far end, bumped against the unfastened door and was
scuttling across the outer threshold. Father ran after him, only to
see his body floundering from one rock to another and to hear its
happy splash in the water below.
We both felt sorry to lose Nab, for the buyers will always pick out
a lively fellow and pay a better price for him than for another,
even though he be larger.
"Couldn't we trap him again?" I asked.
"I guess you'd have an interesting time catching as smart a seal as
that after he's already been once landed," said father. "One or two
of them that have slipped out of the lasso I've got hold of again;
but if a seal gets away after he's had one full sniff of
civilization he doesn't very often get near enough for a second."
"Would you know him if you should see him?" I asked.
"I don't think we'll ever get that near, but we might come to
within hearing distance, and I could tell his yap out of a
hundred," replied father.
Without saying anything to father about it, I made up my mind to
get Nab back, if such a thing were possible.
The main feeding-ground of the band of seals from which we take our
animals is just off Moss Beach, and I was almost certain that I
could get a sight of Nab there. Whether I should be able to tell
him, floating among the other seals, with only a little, shiny head
out of water, I had doubts; but I thought I could make him
recognize me.
There was only one fact that made me hesitate about carrying out my
plans, and that was the danger of swimming at Moss Beach. Father
had warned me two or three times about the strength of the undertow
there; but since my whole scheme depended upon getting out among
the seals, and I was a good swimmer, I decided to run the risk.
Telling father one night that I should go off in the morning to
fish from the rocks, I went early to bed, and was up next day by
sunrise. With a hook and line and half the length of an old lasso,
I was off for the rocks near Moss Beach.
As it was nearly low tide, I soon had a piece of abalone on my
hook, and was fishing.
No seals were in sight, but I kept a sharp lookout for them as I
fished. I had just caught a second shad--and it was something I had
never done before, to catch a shad off the rocks--when the heads of
half a dozen seals appeared on the swells to my left. More heads
came in sight as I grabbed up my fishes and hastened to the sandy
part of the shore.
I was in high spirits, for shad would tempt Nab as no other fish
could. In less than two minutes I had my clothes off, the lariat
knotted round my waist, and the short string that tied the fishes
together between my teeth.
The seals were still where I had first seen them, out less than two
hundred yards from shore.
I waded quickly into the water until the waves began to break over
my head, and then swam. Before I had taken three strokes one of the
fishes I held by my teeth began to lend assistance, jumping and
splashing about so under my nose that I thought best to beat a
retreat.
When I turned to gain shallow water again, however, I felt at once
the strength of the undertow, which in my excitement I had entirely
forgotten. I could make no headway against it until a couple of big
waves came up from behind, and sent me far enough in to get a firm
footing.
With confidence that my shad would give me no more trouble, I again
turned to swim out. The water of the big waves that had boosted me
in now began to draw me out in the undertow.
I hesitated when I felt the strength of its sweep, and still more
as I thought of the greater force it would have when the tide
turned. Where I stood I could withstand it, but a little deeper in
I well knew it would be impossible to do so without the help of
incoming waves.
"They just washed me ashore once; I guess they will again," I
thought, and threw myself into the current.
As I approached the seals most of them began to swim off, but two
or three of the larger males stood their ground, letting me come to
within a couple of rods of them. Nearer, however, they would not
let me draw, although their curiosity about me was great.
From the way they went circling round me, stretching their long
necks up out of the water to get a good view, I concluded I was of
a different species of water animal from those with which they were
familiar. Of Nab, however, I could see nothing.
"Fish, Nab, fish, fish!" I called, and held up for inspection one
of the shad I had brought.
At the sound of my voice there was a sharp little bark from behind,
such as Nab alone could give when I had an exceptionally delicate
morsel for him. I turned quickly, and saw at a distance his shining
dog-shaped head.
"Fish, Nab, a fine shad for you, fish!" I coaxed.
He came a little nearer, and I was confident the bait would prove
irresistible. But my assurance was ill-founded, for in spite of
all my coaxing, Nab only circled round and round me until I was
dizzy trying to keep track of him. Either he had had fairly good
luck fishing for himself that morning, and was not suffering very
keen pangs of hunger, or else he still associated my benevolence
too closely with the little square splash-tub of the seal-house.
When I had begun to grow weary from the incessant motion necessary
to keep myself afloat, Nab suddenly made a dash so close that his
flippers brushed my side. He snapped the fish out of my hand, and
in the same instant he was again beyond reach. The fact that he had
come up for one fish encouraged me to hope he would come also for
the second, and I began to coax with renewed energy.
Nab was seemingly as much on his guard as before, however, and
again went through his complete list of maneuvers, first rearing
high out of the water, turning one side of his head and then the
other toward me, then ducking into the depths with a final flourish
of his tail, to reappear presently on the other side of me, as
sportive as before.
By this time I had begun to feel pretty well exhausted, and when I
suddenly thought of the undertow, I decided to swim back.
So intent had I been upon urging Nab near enough to get the lariat
about his neck that I had not once looked toward shore. As I now
did so I was terrified to find that one of the unaccountably
shifting currents along Moss Beach had swept me a long distance out
to sea.
Without more nonsense, I dropped my remaining shad and started back
with long, even strokes. Nab snapped up the fish and disappeared in
the deep green water.
In spite of my efforts, I found that I was making small speed
against the current. The rock and tree on the point of land to my
right, by which I judged my progress, kept almost in the same
straight line. Knowing it was useless to spend my strength directly
against a current, I shifted my course in the direction of the
point. From the sand-hills to my left I could see that I now made
more progress, but the distance I had to cover was greater than
straight to Moss Beach.
Before I had covered half the distance I was almost too fatigued to
take another stroke; then the feeling of weariness seemed to leave
me, and I swam on as if turned into a machine. It was in a
mechanical way, too, that my brain seemed to work.
"If the undertow's as strong as when I came out," I thought, "I can
never get through the breakers."
I wished I had told father my plans. He might have come out with a
boat to get me. Then I wondered how it was that my arms and legs
kept on moving when there was so little feeling in them.
The roar of the breakers had suddenly grown louder, and I saw I was
within twenty yards of shore. I swam on with the same steady
strokes, but at a certain distance from the water-line came to a
standstill.
I knew I was held back by the undertow, and that there was need of
all my remaining strength to get ashore. I increased my efforts,
but surged helplessly forward and backward with the rising and
falling waves.
When I thought I had given my last stroke, a big wave boosted me
in, followed by a second and third, until it seemed I must be where
I could reach bottom.
I let my feet down, down, until my toes at last touched the sand. I
dug them in with all my might, and battled desperately to keep my
footing.
Then came a little swell that lifted me from my feet, and the
terrible current swooped me back again. My strength was gone, and I
turned on my back to float.
"Perhaps I can try again if I rest," I thought, and meanwhile
drifted out until the roar of the breakers came but dully to my
ears--out where the water was deep and green.
Realizing that I paid for every minute of rest by drifting farther
from shore, I rolled wearily over, and with slow strokes started
back.