The most impatient person on board the Dipsey was Captain Jim Hubbell.
Sarah Block was also very anxious to go home as soon as matters could
be arranged for the return journey, and she talked a great deal of the
terrible fate which would be sure to overtake them if they should be so
unfortunate as to stay until the season of the arctic night; but, after
all, she was not as impatient as Captain Hubbell. She simply wanted
to go home; but he not only greatly desired to return to his wife and
family, but he wanted to do something else before he started south; he
wanted to go whaling. He considered himself the only man in the whole
world who had a chance to go whaling, and he chafed as he thought of the
hindrances which Mr. Gibbs was continually placing in the way of this,
the grandest of all sports.
Mr. Gibbs was a mild man, and rather a quiet one; but he thoroughly
understood the importance of the investigations he was pursuing in the
polar sea, and placed full value upon the opportunity which had come
to him of examining the wonders of a region hitherto locked up from
civilized man. Captain Hubbell was astonished to find that Mr. Gibbs
was as hard and unyielding as an iceberg during his explorations and
soundings. It was of no use to talk to him of whaling; he had work
before him, and he must do it.
But the time came when Mr. Gibbs relented. The Dipsey had sailed around
the whole boundary of the polar sea; observations, surveys, and maps had
been made, and the general geography of the region had been fairly well
determined. There still remained some weeks of the arctic day, and it
was desirable that they should begin their return journey during that
time; so Mr. Gibbs informed Captain Jim that if he wanted to do a little
whaling, he would like him to lose no time.
Almost from the time of their arrival in the polar sea the subject of
whales had greatly interested everybody on the Dipsey. Even Rovinski,
who had been released from his confinement after a few days, because
he had really committed no actual crime except that of indulging in
overleaping ambition, had spent every available minute of leisure in
looking for whales. It was strange that nothing in this Northern region
interested the people on the Dipsey (with the sole exception of Mr.
Gibbs) so much as these great fish, which seemed to be the only visible
inhabitants of the polar solitudes. There were probably white
bears somewhere on the icy shores about them, but they never showed
themselves; and if birds were there, they did not fly over that sea.
There was reason to suppose that there were a good many whales in the
polar sea. Wherever our party sailed, lay to, or anchored for a time,
they were very sure, before long, to see a whale curving his shining
black back into the light, or sending two beautiful jets of water up
into the air. Whenever a whale was seen, somebody on board was sure to
remark that these creatures in this part of the world seemed to be very
tame. It was not at all uncommon to see one disport himself at no great
distance from the vessel for an hour or more.
“If I could get among a school of whales anywhere around Nantucket and
find 'em as tame as these fellers,” said Captain Jim, “I'd give a boom
to the whale-oil business that it hasn't had for forty years.”
But not long before Mr. Gibbs told the captain that he might go whaling
if he felt like it, the old sailor had experienced a change of mind. He
had become a most ardent student of whales. In his very circumscribed
experience when a young man he had seen whales, but they had generally
been a long way off; and as the old-fashioned method of rowing after
them in boats had even then been abandoned in favor of killing them by
means of the rifled cannon, Captain Hubbell had not seen very much of
these creatures until they had been towed alongside. But now he could
study whales at his leisure. It was seldom that he had to wait very long
before he would see one near enough for him to examine it with a glass,
and he never failed to avail himself of such opportunities.
The consequence of this constant and careful inspection was the
conclusion in Captain Hubbell's mind that there was only one whale in
the polar sea. He had noticed, and others had noticed, that they never
saw two at once, and the captain had used his glass so often and so well
that one morning he stamped his foot upon the deck and said to Sammy:
“I believe that's the same whale over and over and over ag'in. I
know him like a book; he has his ways and his manners, and it isn't
reasonable to suppose that every whale has the same ways and manners. He
comes just so near the vessel, and then he stops and blows. Then he suns
his back for a while, and then he throws up his flukes and sounds. He
does that as regular as if he was a polar clock. I know the very shape
of his flukes; and two or three days ago, as he was soundin', I thought
that the tip of the upper one looked as if it had been damaged--as if he
had broken it floppin' about in some tight place; and ever since, when
I have seen a whale, I have looked for the tip of that upper fluke, and
there's that same old break. Every time I have looked I have found it.
It can't be that there are a lot o' whales in here and each one of 'em
with a battered fluke.”
“That does look sort o' queer,” said Sammy, reflectively.
“Sammy Block,” said Captain Jim, impressively, “it's my opinion that
there's only one whale in this here polar sea; an', more than that,
it's my opinion that there's only one whale in this world, an' that that
feller we've seen is the one! Samuel Block, he's the last whale in the
whole world! Now you know that I wanted to go a-whalin'--that's natural
enough--but since Mr. Gibbs has got through, and has said that I could
take this vessel an' go a-whalin' if I wanted to--which would be easy
enough, for we have got guns aboard which would kill any right-whale--I
don't want to go. I don't want to lay on my dyin' bed an' think that
I'm the man that killed the last whale in the world. I'm commandin' this
vessel, and I sail it wherever Mr. Gibbs tells me to sail it; but if he
wants the bones of a whale to take home as a curiosity, an' tells me to
sail this vessel after that whale, I won't do it.”
“I'm with you there,” said Sammy. “I have been thinkin' while you was
talkin', an' it's my opinion that it's not only the last whale in the
world, but it's purty nigh tame. I believe it's so glad to see some
other movin' creature in this lonely sea that it wants to keep company
with us all the time. No, sir, I wouldn't have anything to do with
killin' that fish!”
The opinions of the captain and Sammy were now communicated to the rest
of the company on board, and nearly all of them thought that they had
had such an idea themselves. The whale certainly looked very familiar
every time he showed himself.
To Mr. Gibbs this lonely creature, if he were such, now became an object
of intense interest. It was evidently a specimen of the right-whale,
once common in the Northern seas, skeletons of which could be seen in
many museums. Nothing would be gained to science by his capture, and Mr.
Gibbs agreed with the others that it would be a pity to harm this, the
last of his race.
In thinking and talking over the matter Mr. Gibbs formed a theory which
he thought would explain the presence of this solitary whale in the
polar sea. He thought it very likely that it had gotten under the ice
and had pursued its northern journey very much as the Dipsey had pursued
hers, and had at last emerged, as she had, into the polar sea at a place
perhaps as shallow as that where the submarine vessel came out from
under the ice.
“And if that's the case,” said Captain Hubbell, “it is ten to one that
he has not been able to get out again, and has found himself here
caught just as if he was in a trap. Fishes don't like to swim into tight
places. They may do it once, but they don't want to do it again. It is
this disposition that makes 'em easy to catch in traps. I believe you
are right, Mr. Gibbs. I believe this whale has got in here and can't get
out--or, at least, he thinks he can't--and nobody knows how long it's
been since he first got in. It may have been a hundred years ago.
There's plenty o' little fish in these waters for him to eat, and he's
the only one there is to feed.”
The thought that in this polar sea with themselves was a great whale,
which was probably here simply because he could not get out, had a
depressing effect upon the minds of the party on the Dipsey. There was
perhaps no real reason why they should fear the fate of the great fish,
but, after all, this subject was one which should be very seriously
considered. The latter part of their passage under the ice had been very
hazardous. Had they struck a sharp rock below them, or had they been
pierced by a jagged mass of ice above them, there probably would have
been a speedy end of the expedition; and now, having come safely out of
that dangerous shallow water, they shrank from going into it again.
It was the general opinion that if they would sail a considerable
distance to the eastward they could not fail to find a deep channel by
which the waters of this sea communicated with Baffin's Bay; but in this
case they would be obliged to leave the line of longitude by which they
had safely travelled from Cape Tariff to the pole and seek another route
southward, along some other line, which would end their journey they
knew not where.
“I am cold,” said Sarah Block. “At first I got along all right, with
all these furs, and goin' down-stairs every time I felt chilly, but the
freezin' air is beginnin' to go into my very bones like needles; and if
winter is comin' on, and it's goin' to be worse than this, New Jersey
is the place for me. But there's one thing that chills my blood clammier
than even the cold weather, and that is the thought of that whale
follerin' us. If we get down into those shaller places under the ice an'
he takes it into his head to come along, he'll be worse than a bull in
a china-shop. I don't mean to say that I think he'll want to do us any
harm, for he has never shown any sign of such a feelin', but if he takes
to bouncin' and thrashin' when he scratches himself on any rocks, it'll
be a bad box for us to be in.”
None of the others shared these special fears of Mrs. Block, but they
were all as much disinclined as she was to begin another submarine
voyage in the shallow waters which they had been so glad to leave.
It was believed, from the general contour of the surrounding region,
that if the ice were all melted away it would be seen that a cape
projected from the American continent eastward at the point where they
had entered the polar sea, and that it was in crossing the submerged
continuation of this cape that they had found the shallow water. Beyond
and southward they knew that the water was deep and safe. If they could
reach that portion of the sea without crossing the shallow point, they
would have no fears regarding their return voyage. They knew how far
south it was that that deep water lay, and the questions before them
related to the best means of reaching it.
At a general council of officers, Sammy and Captain Hubbell both
declared that they were not willing to take any other path homeward
except one which led along the seventieth line of longitude. That had
brought them safely up, and it would take them safely down. If they
went under the ice at some point eastward, how were they to find the
seventieth line of longitude? They could not take observations down
there; and they might have to go south on some other line, which would
take them nobody knew where. Mr. Gibbs said little, but he believed that
it would be well to go back the way they came.
At last a plan was proposed by Mr. Marcy, and adopted without dissent.
The whole country which lay in the direction they wished to travel
seemed to be an immense plain of ice and snow, with mountains looming up
towards the west and in the far southeast. In places great slabs of ice
seemed to be piled up into craggy masses, but in general the surface
of the country was quite level, indicating underlying water. In fact,
a little east of the point where they had entered the polar sea great
cracks and reefs, some of them extending nearly a mile inward, broke up
the shore line. The party on the Dipsey were fully able to travel over
smooth ice and frozen snow, for this contingency had been thought of and
provided for; but to take the Dipsey on an overland journey would, of
course, be impossible. By Mr. Marcy's plan, however, it was thought that
it would be quite feasible for the Dipsey to sail inland until she had
reached a point where they were sure the deep sea lay serenely beneath
the ice around them.