A striking and by no means a pleasant change took place in the general
appearance of the _Red Eric_ immediately after the successful chase
detailed in the last chapter.
Before the arrival of the whales the decks had been beautifully clean
and white, for Captain Dunning was proud of his ship, and fond of
cleanliness and order. A few hours after the said arrival the decks
were smeared with grease, oil, and blood, and everything from stem to
stern became from that day filthy and dirty.
This was a sad change to poor Ailie, who had not imagined it possible
that so sudden and disagreeable an alteration could take place. But
there was no help for it; the duties of the fishery in which they were
engaged required that the whales should not only be caught, but cut up,
boiled down to oil, and stowed away in the hold in casks.
If the scene was changed for the worse a few hours after the cutting-up
operations were begun, it became infinitely more so when the _try-works_
were set going, and the melting-fires were lighted, and huge volumes of
smoke begrimed the masts, and sails, and rigging. It was vain to think
of clearing up; had they attempted that, the men would have been
over-tasked without any good being accomplished. There was only one
course open to those who didn't like it, and that was--to "grin and bear
it."
"Cutting out" and "trying in" are the terms used by whale-men to denote
the processes of cutting off the flesh or "blubber" from the whale's
carcase, and reducing it to oil.
At an early hour on the following morning the first of these operations
was commenced.
Ailie went about the decks, looking on with mingled wonder, interest,
and disgust. She stepped about gingerly, as if afraid of coming in
contact with slimy objects, and with her nose and mouth screwed up after
the fashion of those who are obliged to endure bad smells. The
expression of her face under the circumstances was amusing.
As for the men, they went about their work with relish, and total
indifference as to consequences.
When the largest whale had been hauled alongside, ropes were attached to
his head and tail, and the former was secured near the stern of the
ship, while the latter was lashed to the bow; the cutting-tackle was
then attached. This consisted of an arrangement of pulleys depending
from the main-top, with a large blubber-hook at the end thereof. The
cutting was commenced at the neck, and the hook attached; then the men
hove on the windlass, and while the cutting was continued in a spiral
direction round the whale's body, the tackle raised the mass of flesh
until it reached the fixed blocks above. This mass, when it could be
hauled up no higher, was then cut off, and stowed away under the name of
a "blanket-piece." It weighed upwards of a ton. The hook being lowered
and again attached, the process was continued until the whole was cut
off. Afterwards, the head was severed from the body and hoisted on
board, in order that the oil contained in the hollow of it might be
baled out.
From the head of the first whale ten barrels of oil were obtained. The
blubber yielded about eighty barrels.
When the "cutting out" was completed, and the remnants of bone and flesh
were left to the sharks which swarmed round the vessel, revelling in
their unusually rich banquet, the process of "trying in" commenced.
"Trying in" is the term applied to the melting of the fat and the
stowing of it away in barrels in the form of oil; and an uncommonly
dirty process it is. The large "blanket-pieces" were cut into smaller
portions, and put into the try-pots, which were kept in constant
operation. At night the ship had all the appearance of a vessel on
fire, and the scene on deck was particularly striking and unearthly.
One night several of the men were grouped on and around the windlass,
chatting, singing, and "spinning yarns." Ailie Dunning stood near them,
lost in wonder and admiration; for the ears and eyes of the child were
assailed in a manner never before experienced or dreamed of even in the
most romantic mood of cloud-wandering.
It was a very dark night, darker than usual, and not a breath of wind
ruffled the sea, which was like a sheet of undulating glass--for, be it
remembered, there is no such thing at any time as absolute stillness in
the ocean. At all times, even in the profoundest calm, the long, slow,
gentle swell rises and sinks with unceasing regularity, like the bosom
of a man in deep slumber.
Dense clouds of black smoke and occasional lurid sheets of flame rose
from the try-works, which were situated between the foremast and the
main-hatch. The tops of the masts were lost in the curling smoke, and
the black waves of the sea gleamed and flashed in the red light all
round the ship. One man stood in front of the melting-pot, pitching in
pieces of blubber with a two-pronged pitchfork. Two comrades stood by
the pots, stirring up their contents, and throwing their figures into
wild uncouth attitudes, while the fire glared in their greasy faces, and
converted the front of their entire persons into deep vermilion.
The oil was hissing in the try-pots; the rough weather-beaten faces of
the men on the windlass were smeared, and their dirty-white ducks
saturated, with oil. The decks were blood-stained; huge masses of flesh
and blubber lay scattered about; sparks flew upwards in splendid showers
as the men raked up the fires; the decks, bulwarks, railings, try-works,
and windlass were covered with oil and slime, and glistening in the red
glare. It was a terrible, murderous-looking scene, and filled Ailie's
mind with mingled feelings of wonder, disgust, and awe, as she leaned on
a comparatively clean spot near the foremast, listening to the men and
gazing at the rolling smoke and flames.
"Ain't it beautiful?" said a short, fat little seaman named Gurney, who
sat swinging his legs on the end of the windlass, and pointed, as he
spoke, with the head of his pipe to a more than usually brilliant burst
of sparks and flame that issued that moment from the works.
"Beautiful!" exclaimed a long-limbed, shambling fellow named Jim
Scroggles, "why, that ain't the word at all. Now, I calls it
splendiferous."
Scroggles looked round at his comrades, as if to appeal to their
judgment as to the fitness of the word, but not receiving any
encouragement, he thrust down the glowing tobacco in his pipe with the
end of his little finger, and reiterated the word "splendiferous" with
marked emphasis.
"Did ye ever see that word in Johnson?" inquired Gurney.
"Who's Johnson?" said Scroggles, contemptuously.
"Wot, don't ye know who Johnson is?" cried Gurney, in surprise.
"In course I don't; how should I?" retorted Scroggles. "There's ever so
many Johnsons in the world; which on 'em all do you mean?"
"Why, I mean Johnson wot wrote the diksh'nary--the great lexikragofer."
"Oh, it's _him_ you mean, is it? In course I've knowed him ever since I
wos at school."
A general laugh interrupted the speaker.
"At school!" cried Nickel Sling, who approached the group at that moment
with a carving knife in his hand--he seldom went anywhere without an
instrument of office in his hand--"At school! Wal now, that beats
creation. If ye wos, I'm sartin ye only larned to forgit all ye orter
to have remembered. I'd take a bet now, ye wosn't at school as long as
I've been settin' on this here windlass."
"Yer about right, Sling, it 'ud be unpossible for me to be as _long_ as
you anywhere, 'cause everybody knows I'm only five fut two, whereas
you're six fut four!"
"Hear, hear!" shouted Dick Barnes--a man with a huge black beard, who
the reader may perhaps remember was the first to "raise the oil."
"It'll be long before you make another joke like that, Gurney. Come,
now, give us a song, Gurney, do; there's the cap'n's darter standin' by
the foremast, a-waitin' to hear ye. Give us `Long, long ago.'"
"Ah! that's it, give us a song," cried the men. "Come, there's a good
fellow."
"Well, it's so long ago since I sung that song, shipmates," replied
Gurney, "that I've bin and forgot it; but Tim Rokens knows it; where's
Rokens?"
"He's in the watch below."
In sea parlance, the men whose turn it is to take rest after their long
watch on deck are somewhat facetiously said to belong to the "watch
below."
"Ah! that's a pity; so we can't have that 'ere partickler song. But
I'll give ye another, if ye don't object."
"No, no. All right; go ahead, Gurney! Is there a chorus to it?"
"Ay, in course there is. Wot's a song without a chorus? Wot's
plum-duff without the plums? Wot's a ship without a 'elm? It's my
opinion, shipmates, that a song without a chorus is no better than it
should be. It's wus nor nothin'. It puts them wot listens in the blues
an' the man wot sings into the stews--an' sarve him right. I wouldn't,
no, I wouldn't give the fag-end o' nothin' mixed in bucket o' salt water
for a song without a chorus--that's flat; so here goes."
Having delivered himself of these opinions in an extremely vigorous
manner, and announced the fact that he was about to begin, Gurney
cleared his throat and drew a number of violent puffs from his pipe in
quick succession, in order to kindle that instrument into a glow which
would last through the first verse and the commencement of the chorus.
This he knew was sufficient, for the men, when once fairly started on
the chorus, would infallibly go on to the end with or without his
assistance, and would therefore afford him time for a few restorative
whiffs.
"It hain't got no name, lads."
"Never mind, Gurney--all right--fire away."
"Oh, I once know'd a man as hadn't got a nose,
An' this is how he come to hadn't--
One cold winter night he went and got it froze--
By the pain he was well-nigh madden'd.
(_Chorus_.) Well-nigh madden'd,
By the pain he was well-nigh madden'd.
"Next day it swoll up as big as my head,
An' it turn'd like a piece of putty;
It kivered up his mouth, oh, yes, so it did,
So he could not smoke his cutty.
(_Chorus_.) Smoke his cutty,
So he could not smoke his cutty.
"Next day it grew black, and the next day blue,
An' tough as a junk of leather;
(Oh! he yelled, so he did, fit to pierce ye through)--
An' then it fell off altogether!
(_Chorus_.) Fell off altogether,
An' then it fell off altogether!
"But the morial is wot you've now got to hear,
An' it's good--as sure as a gun;
An' you'll never forget it, my messmates dear,
For this song it hain't got none!
(_Chorus_.) Hain't got none,
For this song it hain't got none!"
The applause that followed this song was most enthusiastic, and
evidently gratifying to Gurney, who assumed a modest deprecatory air as
he proceeded to light his pipe, which had been allowed to go out at the
third verse, the performer having become so engrossed in his subject as
to have forgotten the interlude of puffs at that point.
"Well sung, Gurney. Who made it?" inquired Phil Briant, an Irishman,
who, besides being a jack-of-all-trades and an able-bodied seaman, was
at that time acting-assistant to the cook and steward, the latter--a
half Spaniard and half negro, of Californian extraction--being unwell.
"I'm bound not to tell," replied Gurney, with a conscious air.
"Ah, then, yer right, my boy, for it's below the average entirely."
"Come, Phil, none o' yer chaff," cried Dick Barnes, "that song desarves
somethin' arter it. Suppose now, Phil, that you wos to go below and
fetch the bread-kid."
"Couldn't do it," replied Phil, looking solemn, "on no account wotiver."
"Oh, nonsense, why not?"
"'Cause its unpossible. Why, if I did, sure that surly compound o' all
sorts o' human blood would pitch into me with the carvin'-knife."
"Who? Tarquin?" cried Dick Barnes, naming the steward.
"Ay, sure enough that same--Tarquin's his name, an it's kuriously
befittin' the haythen, for of all the cross-grained mixtures o' buffalo,
bear, bandicoot, and crackadile I iver seed, he's out o' sight--"
"Did I hear any one mention my name?" inquired the steward himself who
came aft at that moment. He was a wild Spanish-like fellow, with a
handsome-enough figure, and a swart countenance that might have been
good-looking but for the thickish lips and nose and the bad temper that
marked it. Since getting into the tropics, the sailors had modified
their costumes considerably, and as each man had in some particular
allowed himself a slight play of fancy, their appearance, when grouped
together, was varied and picturesque. Most of them wore no shoes, and
the caps of some were, to say the least, peculiar. Tarquin wore a
broad-brimmed straw hat, with a conical crown, and a red silk sash tied
round his waist.
"Yes, Tarquin," replied Barnes, "we _wos_ engaged in makin'
free-an'-easy remarks on you; and Phil Briant there gave us to
understand that you wouldn't let us have the bread--kid up. Now, it's
my opinion you ain't goin' to be so hard on us as that; you will let us
have it up to comfort our hearts on this fine night, won't you?"
The steward, whose green visage showed that he was too ill to enter into
a dispute at that time, turned on his heel and walked aft, remarking
that they might eat the bottom out o' the ship, for all he cared.
"There now, you misbemannered Patlander, go and get it, or we'll throw
you overboard," cried Scroggles, twisting his long limbs awkwardly as he
shifted his position on the windlass.
"Now, then, shipmates, don't go for to ax it," said Briant, remaining
immovable. "Don't I know wot's best for ye? Let me spaake to ye now.
Did any of ye iver study midsin?"
"No!" cried several with a laugh.
"Sure I thought not," continued Phil, with a patronising air, "or ye'd
niver ask for the bread--kid out o' saisin. Now I was in the medical
way meself wance--ay, ye may laugh, but it's thrue--I wos 'prentice to a
'pothecary, an' I've mixed up more midsins than would pisen the whole
popilation of owld Ireland--barrin' the praists, av coorse. And didn't
I hear the convarse o' all the doctors in the place? And wasn't the
word always--`Be rigglar with yer mails--don't ait, avic, more nor three
times a day, and not too much, now. Be sparin'.'"
"Hah! ye long-winded grampus," interrupted Dick Barnes, impatiently.
"An' warn't the doctors right? Three times a day for sick folk, and six
times--or more--for them wot's well."
"Hear, hear!" cried the others, while two of them seized Briant by the
neck, and thrust him forcibly towards the after-hatch. "Bring up the
kid, now; an' if ye come without it, look out for squalls."
"Och! worse luck," sighed the misused assistant, as he disappeared.
In a few minutes Phil returned with the kid, which was a species of tray
filled with broken sea-biscuit, which, when afloat, goes by the name of
"bread."
This was eagerly seized, for the appetites of sailors are always sharp,
except immediately after meals. A quantity of the broken biscuit was
put into a strainer, and fried in whale-oil, and the men sat round the
kid to enjoy their luxurious feast, and relate their adventures--all of
which were more or less marvellous, and many of them undoubtedly true.
The more one travels in this world of ours, and the more one reads of
the adventures of travellers upon whose narratives we can place implicit
confidence, the more we find that men do not now require, as they did of
old, to draw upon their imaginations for marvellous tales of wild,
romantic adventure, in days gone by, travellers were few; foreign lands
were almost unknown. Not many books were written; and of the few that
were, very few were believed. In the present day men of undoubted
truthfulness have roamed far and wide over the whole world, their books
are numbered by hundreds, and much that was related by ancient
travellers, but not believed, has now been fully corroborated. More
than that, it is now known that men have every where received, as true,
statements which modern discovery has proved to be false, and on the
other hand they have often refused to believe what is now ascertained to
be literally true.
We would suggest, in passing, that a lesson might be learned from this
fact--namely, that we ought to receive a statement in regard to a
foreign land, not according to the probability or the improbability of
the statement itself, but according to the credibility of him who makes
it. Ailie Dunning had a trustful disposition; she acted on neither of
the above principles. She believed all she heard, poor thing, and
therefore had a head pretty well stored with mingled fact and nonsense.
While the men were engaged with their meal, Dr Hopley came on deck and
found her leaning over the stern, looking down at the waves which shone
with sparkling phosphorescent light. An almost imperceptible breeze had
sprung up, and the way made by the vessel as she passed through the
water was indicated by a stream of what appeared lambent blue flame.
"Looking at the fish, Ailie, as usual?" said the doctor as he came up.
"What are they saying to you to-night?"
"I'm not looking at the fish," answered Ailie; "I'm looking at the
fire--no, not the fire; papa said it wasn't fire, but it's so like it, I
can scarcely call it anything else. What _is_ it, doctor?"
"It is called phosphorescence," replied the doctor, leaning over the
bulwarks, and looking down at the fiery serpent that seemed as if it
clung to the ship's rudder. "But I dare say you don't know what that
means. You know what fire-flies and glow-worms are?"
"Oh! yes; I've often caught them."
"Well, there are immense numbers of very small and very thin jelly-like
creatures in the sea, so thin and so transparent that they can scarcely
be observed in the water. These Medusae, as they are called, possess
the power of emitting light similar to that of the fire-fly. In short,
Ailie, they are the fire-flies and glow-worms of the ocean."
The child listened with wonder, and for some minutes remained silent.
Before she could again speak, there occurred one of those incidents
which are generally spoken of as "most unexpected" and sudden, but
which, nevertheless, are the result of natural causes, and might have
been prevented by means of a little care.
The wind, as we have said, was light, so light that it did not distend
the sails; the boom of the spanker-sail hung over the stern, and the
spanker-braces lay slack along the seat on which Ailie and the doctor
knelt. A little gust of wind came: it was not strong--a mere puff; but
the man at the wheel was not attending to his duty: the puff, light as
it was, caused the spanker to jibe--that is to fly over from one side of
the ship to the other--the heavy boom passed close over the steersman's
head as he cried, "Look out!" The braces tautened, and in so doing they
hurled Dr Hopley violently to the deck, and tossed Ailie Dunning over
the bulwarks into the sea.
It happened at that moment that Glynn Proctor chanced to step on deck.
"Hallo! what's wrong?" cried the youth, springing forward, catching the
doctor by the coat, as he was about to spring overboard, and pulling him
violently back, under the impression that he was deranged.
The doctor pointed to the sea, and, with a look of horror, gasped the
word "Ailie."
In an instant Glynn released his hold, plunged over the stern of the
ship, and disappeared in the waves.