THE WHALEMAN’S LOG
“My turn to talk?” exclaimed the lively hunchback. “Fine! Talking is my
favorite sport. But before I commence, I will show friend Blake, here,
Exhibit B.”
He reached into the cash-box and drew out a little book. Martin
observed that it was apparently a pocket notebook, a cheap, dog-eared
thing with cracked cardboard covers. Little Billy held it up before
Martin’s eyes.
“This is Exhibit B,” he continued. “Read this, on the fly-leaf!”
Martin leaned closer and saw written in faded ink on the fly-leaf the
inscription,
John Winters,
His Log.
Bark _Good Luck_ of New Bedford.
1889.
No. 2.
“Ah, I see your mind is leaping to conclusions!” went on Little Billy,
as surmise and understanding flitted across Martin’s face. “And correct
conclusions, I have no doubt. But before I confirm your suspicions, by
reading excerpts from John Winters’s Log, I had better tell you how
this little book came into our possession.
“So then, let us jump from Bering Sea to Honolulu, and from August to
January. My narrative commences with the night I spent in Kim Chee’s
Chamber of Horrors, while recovering from my semi-annual drunk.
“Oh, don’t try to shield me—” as Ruth attempted to interpose—“Blake may
as well be made acquainted with my failing. He would find out anyway.”
Martin was taken aback by the violent interjection. A grim cloud rested
for a moment on the hunchback’s sunny face, and the man looked suddenly
aged. Martin saw that Ruth’s face was soft with sympathy. But Little
Billy’s next words were enlightening.
“Perhaps I could justly pass the buck to my begettors,” he said. “I
came into the world handicapped—a crooked back, and a camel’s desire
and capacity for liquids—alcoholic liquids. I am a periodical drunkard.
Every six months, or so, I am constrained by the imp within me to
saturate myself with spirits and wallow in the gutter, like a pig in a
sty.”
“Oh, don’t believe him—-it is not so bad as that!” cried Ruth.
“It is indeed,” asserted Little Billy. “As witness this time, when I
fought the ‘willies’ in Kim Chee’s rubbish room. It must be admitted,
though, that this particular spree had a fruitful ending, for it was in
Kim Chee’s that I discovered the secret of Fire Mountain. It was this
way:
“When we came down from the Bering in September, we sold our furs to a
Jap syndicate in Hakodate. The captain has dealt regularly with that
Jap firm—they pay good prices, and ask few questions. Then we left
Hakodate on our Winter trip—captain had the idea that he might run
across something worth while in the neighborhood of Torres Straits.
But, let me mention in passing, before we sailed we shipped a cook. He
was a Jap named Ichi, an affable little man who couldn’t speak very
good English, who seemed rather dull-witted for his race. More of him,
later on.
“Down South we had the accident, and the captain’s eyes were injured.
We made a record passage to Honolulu, arrived there the first week in
January, and the captain went ashore to the hospital. The bosun and I
snugged down everything on board, and then I succumbed to my habit. I
went ashore and tried to place Honolulu in the dry column by swallowing
all the whisky in town. I suppose I had a glorious time—I don’t
remember much about it. But about a week later I came to one evening in
Kim Chee’s place, with a dollar and five cents in my pocket, a blazing
stomach, and a troupe of goblins affixed to my person as a retinue.
“Kim Chee is the oldest, most wrinkled-up Chinaman in the world. He has
had that drinking den in Honolulu for forty years—ran it in the old
days when the King and the Opium Ring governed Hawaii. It has always
been a sailor resort; in the old days it was a whalemen’s rendezvous.
Fine old gentleman, Kim Chee.
“I couldn’t drink any more, and I was jumpy. So Kim Chee ushered me
into his Chamber of Horrors. The Chamber of Horrors is an institution
at Kim’s place. It is a rubbish room, filled with the junk the old
Chinaman has collected during a lifetime, and whenever one of his
patrons gets the horrors from imbibing his bottled dynamite, Kim chucks
him into this room to die or get over it as the Fates decree.
“So I found myself in this room, with an old lantern for light. I was
in a bad way. I was seeing things. Not alligators or monkeys, such
as the conventional drunk is supposed to see, but Things, faceless
formless Things who brushed against me and leered at me out of the
corners. _Urrgh_! The memory makes me quake.
“I was afraid of losing control of myself, and to keep myself occupied,
and my tormentors in the background, I commenced to paw over the junk
pile. I was searching for something to read.
“Well, there was an assortment in that room that would have gladdened
the heart of any collector—native weapons from all the islands of the
Pacific, carved whalebone from the North, knickknacks from wherenot,
everything that a couple of generations of sailormen could leave behind
them. There were sea-chests and sea-bags that belonged to men who, I
doubt not, were drowned before I was born. But nowhere did I find what
I sought—something to read.
“I was about to give up the search when I picked up a small package,
oilskin-wrapped and securely tied with marlin. It had lain in that
corner for a long, long time. It was covered with dust, and the oilskin
was brittle dry. The package felt like a book. I opened it, and found I
had John Winters’s diary in my hand.
“I read that inscription on the fly-leaf, but I must confess that I
didn’t think of Fire Mountain at the moment. That came later. But I was
interested—a sailor’s private log always interests a man who knows the
sea. I sat down on one of the old chests, drew the lantern close and
commenced to read. And as I read, I forgot my ills entirely.
“Now, I’ll read you portions of this little book. Afterward, if you
wish, Blake, you may read it through yourself. It is worth while—the
record of a whaling voyage. But just now I will confine myself to the
parts that directly affect us. Queer thought, isn’t it, that the words
this chap wrote a quarter of a century ago, whose face none of us
has ever seen, who is also twenty-five years dead, should affect our
several destinies? Fate is a strange jade!
“But first, a word about the author of this log. This John Winters was
the second mate of the whaling bark _Good Luck_ of New Bedford, one
gleans from reading the book. The inscription on the fly-leaf mentions
the date, 1889, also the figure ‘No. 2.’ The number two means that this
is the second log on the voyage. Research through some old ‘Marine
Bulletins’ the captain owns told us that the whaleship _Good Luck_ left
New Bedford on her last voyage in the year 1887, and that she refitted
in Honolulu in the Fall of 1889, reported missing, with all hands, two
years later. Winters’s log commences with the departure of the ship
from Honolulu in November, ’89.
“The first entry that interests us is made several months later, on
March 23rd, 1890. Position given as 158° E. 9°, 18′ N. That places the
_Good Luck_ somewhere in the Carolines, on the sperm whale grounds. It
goes:
This day Westphal fell from the fore rigging and broke his arm.
Still no sign of fish. The Old Man is in a bad temper because of
our poor luck, and he is talking of going north already. Mr. Garboy
says there is a Jonah aboard. I think he is the Jonah. Westphal is
a Dutch lubber.
“I read this entry mainly to acquaint you with John Winters,” continued
Little Billy. “You see, this was his private journal, and he was given
to expressing his true feelings concerning his shipmates. This Mr.
Garboy he mentions was the chief mate of the _Good Luck_. The next
entry I have marked is dated March 26th, and they are still on the
Caroline grounds.
This day I did cover myself with glory, and did take Garboy down a
peg. This morning we raised fish, a big school of cachalot, about
three mile to leeward. We lowered four boats. I had Silva for
harpooner, the best man on the ship. The mate had Lord Joe, the
Jamaica nigger.
Murphy and Costa bore south to head the school, and Garboy and I
bore straight for them. Raced to see who would first back, and
I won. Backed a big bull, and Silva gave him the iron deep. He
flurried without sounding, and I did not have to lance. Garboy
backed his whale and Lord Joe made a poor cast, and they lost the
fish. I backed a cow, and made fast. She sounded, but we overhauled
at her first blow, and I lanced. Short flurry. Two fish in less
than hour!
Garboy went for a big bull. He had put Lord Joe at the sweep, and
was going to harpoon himself. He backed, and made a fine cast. But
the fish, instead of sounding, turned on their boat, and took it in
his mouth. They all spilled clear except Lord Joe; the poor nigger
was caught. Then the fish sounded, and made off with a tub of line.
I picked up Garboy and his crew, all except Lord Joe—the nigger
was gone—and I made fast to the wreckage. Garboy was wild. I never
heard better swearing.
Costa and Murphy both made a kill, making four fish. And Costa
picked up a lump of amber grease near his kill. Captain Peabody was
very pleased with my work, but he dug into old Garboy. The mate
squirmed, and it tickled me, because he has bragged so much about
his record. He damned Lord Joe mightily, but Lord Joe don’t mind,
he is with Davy Jones. The ambergrease weighs twenty-five pounds. A
fine day’s work!
“There you are, ’a fine day’s work,’ and the pestiferous Mr. Garboy
taken down a peg. I read the entire entry, but the part that really
concerns us, is the part about the ambergris they picked up. Tell me,
Blake, do you know anything about ambergris?”
“No, never heard of the stuff,” answered Martin.
“Then we will have to digress a moment, while I attend to your
neglected education,” said Little Billy. “Because, from tonight, you
will think of ambergris by day, and dream of it by night—ambergris in
kegs, oodles of it! I don’t suppose your legal training acquainted you
with the technical details of the perfume industry?”
“No, I must plead ignorance,” conceded Martin.
“Then pay attention,” admonished Little Billy. “Ambergris, my friend,
is the stuff John Winters calls ambergrease, like the good whaleman
he was. It is a waxy substance, very light weight, that forms inside
of a sperm whale, and which friend whale belches forth when he gets
the colic from feasting too heartily upon squid. Squid, otherwise
cuttle-fish, is a horrid monster, all arms and beak, which the cachalot
considers a most dainty tidbit. Scientific sharks disagree as to the
exact process that forms ambergris, but they all agree that it comes
from an overindulgence in squid. Ambergris is very rarely obtained,
especially nowadays when the whaling industry is almost dead, and it is
actually worth double its weight in gold.
“It is used as a base in the manufacture of the finest perfumes. It
is the best perfume base obtainable—it has the virtue of making the
odor super-fine and enduring. The demand for it is insistent, and
unsatisfied—doubly insistent at the present time, for the supply of
the best substitute for ambergris, the sac of the Himalayan musk deer,
has also been steadily waning, and has now almost been dried up by the
European War. Today there is an almost unlimited market for ambergris,
and the lucky seller can command his own price. The stuff is precious.
We looked up prices in Frisco and found that forty dollars an ounce
will be paid without haggling.
“So now you know what ambergris is, and its connection with the perfume
industry. Soon you will see its connection with us. Meanwhile, let us
to John Winters’s journal again.
“The next relevant entry is five days later, March 31st:
This day we picked up another piece of ambergrease, floating past
overside. Silva spotted it, and he gets ten pounds of tobacco as
a reward. It weighed ten pounds. The Old Man is very joyous; he
says it means good luck. This afternoon we raised two islands, well
wooded. Captain Peabody knows these islands. They are uninhabited,
and the north one is well watered. Tomorrow we wood and water.
“And then, comes the smashing dénouement, the very next day, April 1,
1890:
This day there did happen to us the like which no whaleman aboard
can remember. I will write it down like it happened.
This morning, at dawn, we came through the channel into the lagoon
of the north island. It is a very difficult channel. A current
sweeps the shore and runs through it like it was a big funnel, and
all the driftage hereabouts comes into the lagoon. We let go anchor
in ten fathoms, a half mile from the beach.
I was given the wooding, and Costa was told off to water. We towed
the casks ashore, and landed on a fine, white beach, that was
littered with driftage. While the men were rolling the casks up to
the spring Captain Peabody told us about, Costa and I took a walk
along the beach. We came upon a great squid lying dead. He had been
bitten in two by a cachalot, and had only three arms left, but they
were of tremendous length. Then we saw pieces of other squid all
along the beach.
Suddenly Costa ran forward, and gave a great shout, and bent over
what I had taken to be a big jelly-fish. “By Gar—grease!” says he.
It was a big lump of ambergrease, the biggest any man aboard has
ever seen. It weighs 198 pounds.
But this was not all. Costa and I danced around our find like
madmen, and the hands came running up. Then Silva gave a shout, and
we found he had discovered a lump of grease. Then we looked along
the beach, and we found it was dotted with the precious stuff.
I sent Costa straightway to tell the captain, and he and Mr. Garboy
came ashore in a great hurry. I never saw anybody take on like
Garboy. The Old Man brought everybody ashore, except the cook and
chips, and we combed the beach all the way around the lagoon, and
around the seaward rim of the island. But we didn’t find any grease
except inside. By nightfall we had a big boatload, and we went
aboard. The captain and Mr. Garboy are on the poop now, helping the
cooper stow it, themselves, so afraid are they that some of it will
be smuggled forward. The Old Man is dancing with joy.
“There you are—all of that entry. Just think of those two chaps dancing
around their find, beside a giant dead squid! I wager that was the
supreme moment of their greasy lives. I wager that old spouter seethed
with excitement and gossip that night. No wonder the Old Man danced!
How would you like to stumble on a windfall like that, Blake? But let
us get on.
“I’ll read the entry for three days later. In the interim, they had
lain to anchor in the lagoon, and continued their search for more
ambergris.
We did not get any more grease today, though we raked and scraped
the beach. There is no more. The Old Man says he is satisfied,
and we leave tomorrow morning. Everybody is speculating about how
so much grease came to be here. Nobody knows for sure. Garboy
says that this is a great place for squid, and that the school of
Cachalot we were in a couple of weeks ago had been here feeding. He
says that something was the matter with the squid and that the fish
got sick and vomited the grease.
I don’t know, it may be so, the stuff is full of squid beaks. But
Garboy is too cocksure. Anyway we have the stuff, and stowed safe
in the lazaret. Counting what we picked up before, we have 1,500
pounds. A great fortune for the owners, and a fine bonus for us.
When I get home, I will buy a farm, and settle down ashore.
“So—1,500 pounds, and worth more than half a million dollars, according
to prices paid in those days—today, worth a million. John Winters
might well indulge in dreams of bucolic bliss; the whalemen, you know,
received a substantial bonus on ambergris finds, over and above their
regular lay.
“The log for the next few days is filled with the various speculations
rife as to the origin of the treasure, of visions of quiet farm life in
New England, and of hopes concerning a girl named Alice. Then, on April
25th, 144°, 48′ E. Longitude, 20° 33′ N. Latitude—that shows they were
at the northern limits of the Ladrones—he writes:
We are to have another season up north, in Okhotsk and Bering seas.
The Old Man and Mr. Garboy have had a fine argument about it.
Garboy says we have enough to make the owners happy, and give us
all a fine lay, and that we can’t trust the foremast hands with all
the grease aboard.
Captain Peabody says he is going home with a full ship, grease or
no grease, that the hands may be——, that they haven’t the guts to
get at the grease anyway, and that it isn’t the mate’s place to
give him advice. So Garboy shut up, and we are bound north after
the baleen. Well, I think Garboy is right, though he hasn’t any
business offering advice to the Old Man. I am glad the Old Man shut
him up. Anyway, a full ship means more dollars, and I will need
plenty of dollars to start life ashore with. I will have enough to
buy the old Wentworth place. I think Alice will take me, and if she
don’t, there are plenty of other girls in the world.
“You see, friend Winters is indulging in the time-honored pastime of
spending his payday before he has it; and of vowing the usual sailor
vow to leave the sea and buy a farm. Well, perhaps the poor devil was
in earnest; but he didn’t have a chance to achieve his ambition.
“Now we will skip to the last regular entries in the book. They are
dated several months later, August of 1890, and the _Good Luck_ has
been on the northern grounds for some time. No position is given, for
reasons you will appreciate. First is dated August 15th:
Still in the fog. We have been three weeks without a sight,
fogbound, and blundering God knows where. The breeze holds from
the southwest at about three knots, but the bank is moving with
the wind. It is so thick we can not see a ship’s length in any
direction. The current is strong and westerly.
I know the Old Man is worried, because the Kamchatka coast is close
a-lee. Garboy says he was in a bank in these seas one time for ten
weeks. I think he is a liar. I am thinking a lot about Alice.
“Next entry two days later, August 17th,” said the hunchback.
Still fogbound. Heavy groundswell from sou’east. Garboy says it
means a sou’east blow, and I think he is right. Well, anything to
blow away this cursed fog! The Old Man is drunk today. The old
skinflint never hands out a swig to any of us, though. We must
be near land, for we hear birds flying above the fog. All hands
standing by, and we are keeping the best lookout possible. The Old
Man should sober up, and attend to business.
“There, that is the last regular entry, the last one he wrote upon the
ship. Here is the next one—observe the different ink! This is written
in red, the same color as those figures upon the skin. I think Winters
wrote with one of those red writing-sticks you buy on the China coast;
he probably had one in his pocket. This entry tells of tragedy—mark how
it begins:
May God have mercy! I will write down our plight, though I know
there is small chance of these words reaching civilization. I sit
in the window of the dry cave, on the Fire Mountain, and write by
the light of the midnight sun!
Manuel Silva and I are the sole survivors of the wreck of the _Good
Luck_. Thirty-five were lost. We are cast away on a barren island.
It is a volcanic mountain, filled with black caves. There is a
bottomless hole that belches steam, and the earth shakes. We do not
know our latitude or longitude. God help us, we only know we are
cast away in the empty Bering sea, near the Asia coast!
It happened a week ago. I had the deck. We were running before a
hard gale from the sou’east, and the Old Man was drunk. It was very
thick, and impossible to keep a good lookout. Then, just after two
bells in the middle watch, I heard breakers. I had only time to
order the wheel up, when we struck. We jammed between two monster
rocks, and the masts went by the board, and the ship broke in two.
The fore part went to pieces, and all the hands forward, except
Silva, who was at the wheel, went to.
The stern was wedged fast. Garboy and Costa gained the deck from
the cabin. The others must have drowned in their bunks. We launched
the quarterboat, but it swamped, and we were spilled into the
boiling sea. I was washed free of the reef, and made the beach. I
found Silva there.
We were ’most frozen, and bruised badly. I got out the matches I
had in the waterproof packet I carry this log in, and we made a
fire of driftwood in one of the caves, and warmed ourselves. Then,
we looked for the others, it being daylight, except for the couple
of hours after midnight. But we found not a body.
We salvaged all the wreckage we could reach. It was not much, for
the currents swept most of the stuff to sea. We got a cask of beef,
and one of biscuit. The quarterboat came ashore, only a little
damaged. We also got the wreckage of No. 4 whaleboat, and her gear,
and some timbers, and a handy billy.
That day the gale was spent, and next day was clear and calm.
We repaired the quarterboat with stuff from the whaleboat, and
she is tight. Then we pulled off to the wreck, and succeeded in
boarding her. Then the Devil entered into us, and we were possessed
by greed. We had planned to get clothes, and stores from the
lazaret; but when we got into the lazaret, we had no thought but
for the treasure of ambergrease. We spent all the day getting the
ambergrease to shore. We were greatly tired by the labor, and,
since the wreck showed no signs of breaking up, we went into a cave
and turned in.
While we slept, it came on to blow again. When we awoke, the seas
were breaking over the wreck. The bay was quiet, sheltered by the
mountain, so our stuff on the beach had come to no harm. But during
the day the wreck broke up, and swept to sea. We salvaged but one
box of candles—not a particle of the clothes and food we so sorely
need. So, doth Providence justly punish us for our greed!
Silva was greatly disheartened, but I braced him up. We set about
to explore the caves, with the candles; for we wanted a dry cave to
sleep it, and to stow the ambergrease in. The ground-level caves
are all wet from steam, though they are warm. So, we went into the
mountain through the Elephant Head, toward the great noise. We came
to a windy cave, where there was a great Bottomless Hole, that the
noise came out of. Silva went half mad with terror, for he is very
superstitious, but I saw it was steam. But it is an evil place. And
afterward we found the hole in the roof that led to this dry cave.
This window I write by is the only daylight opening of the dry
cave, and it is full forty feet above the beach. But we had no
nerve to look deeper into the black guts of this awful place, and
we decided to use this cave. So, I rigged the handy billy, and we
hoisted all the grease in through the window, and stowed it. And we
have taken up our quarters here, and I have made a ladder from the
rope of the handy billy, so we can come in through the window, and
don’t have to pass through that fearsome place where the hole is.
“There—that was written a week after the wreck,” said Little Billy.
“The next one, three days later:
We have been here ten days now, and I think things look mighty
black. Silva’s nerve is gone, and I have to fight to keep mine.
The mountain shakes continuously, and we fear it will erupt. And
always, there is the noise, the moaning in the hole, and the great
rumble. It has got Silva.
Silva has gone down to the beach to get shellfish. We are saving
the beef, as much as we can. I am glad Silva is out of my sight. He
is mad—and, God help me! I fear I am going mad, too. He sits and
looks at me by the hour, just looks, looks, and says not a word,
and his eyes burn.
I am feared of him. He is a murderer. He told me so, when his
conscience mastered him. He told me why he feared the hole. He
drank of the hot spring, and when he got a bellyache, he thought
he was dying. Then he told me that he was one of the hands on the
_Argonaut_, a dozen years ago, and that there was mutiny, and
that he strangled the captain with his hands. And he says the
moaning down in the hole is the captain calling him. He is very
superstitious. Now he prays by the hour, and then curses horribly.
And he goes down to the edge of the hole and howls at the captain.
I try to talk with him, and plan to reach the mainland in the
quarterboat, but he shakes his head, and just looks, looks. I have
taken his sheath knife, but I fear to wake and find him strangling
me. But I will leave here, whether he will go or not. Better to die
at sea, than in this black place!
“Now—the next entry. Day or two later, I judge,” said Billy.
He is gone! He was sitting opposite me, and suddenly he sings out
something in his own lingo, and sprang to his feet, and rushed down
toward the hole leading to the windy cave. He was laughing awfully.
I followed—but could not catch him. He jumped into the hole and the
noise stopped. And I stayed through the shake, and saw the lights
from the pit. God help me, I wanted to jump, too!
I am going to leave this place tomorrow. I have repaired the
quarterboat, and hopeless or not, I will try to reach Kamchatka. It
is better than to stay here, and go mad, and follow Silva!
I have written the secret of the cave on a piece of the lining of
my parka, though God knows if I shall ever need it. I have a little
beef, and biscuit, and the breaker from the wreck of the whaleboat.
Little enough! If I only had the latitude and longitude of this
place, I might guess my chances. But—not even a compass!
“The next entry is just a scrawl,” said Little Billy. “It is barely
legible.”
I am in the fog—the terrible gray fog! No water! I see Alice in the
fog!
“And then—the end.”
I see Silva sitting opposite me. He looks, looks! Lord God, hast
thou deserted me?