Captain Ethan Keller, of the Casilda of Nantucket, was in a very bad temper, for in four days he had lost two of the five boats the barque carried—one had been hopelessly stove by the dreaded “underclip” given her by a crafty old bull sperm-whale, and the other, which was in charge of the second mate, had not been seen for seventy hours. When last sighted she was fast to the same bull which had destroyed the first mate's boat; it was then nearly dark, and the whale, which was of an enormous size, although he had three irons in his body and was towing the whole length of line from the stove-in boat as well as that of the second mate, was racing through the water as fresh as when he had first been struck, three hours previously. Then the sun dipped below the sea-rim, and the blue Pacific was shrouded in darkness.
“Why in thunder couldn't the dunderhead put a bomb into that fish before it came on dark?” growled the skipper to his other officers, as they sat down to a harried sapper in the spacious, old-fashioned cabin of the whaler.
No one answered. Frewen, the missing officer, was as good a whaleman as ever drove an iron or gripped the haft of a steer-oar, and his half-caste boatsteerer Randall Cheyne was the best on the ship. But there was bad blood between young Frewen and his captain, and Cheyne was the cause of it.
“If they cut and lose that whale,” resumed Keller presently, “I'll haze the life out of them—by thunder, I will, if I break my back in doing it! Why, that is the biggest fish we've struck yet. If I had been in that boat, I'd have had that whale in his flurry two hours ago. Why, it appears to me that Frewen got too soared to even try to haul up and give him a bomb, let alone giving him the lance—which was easy enough.”
Just as he spoke, one of the boatsteerers entered the cabin and reported that some of the hands thought that they had heard the second mate's bomb gun.
“All right,” growled Keller, “tell the cooper to burn a flare.”
“I guess Frewen won't lose him,” said Lopez, the first mate. “He told me long ago that he never yet had to out, and I don't think he'll do it now—unless something has gone wrong. That must have been his gun.”
“Huh!” sneered Keller, as he viciously speared a piece of salt pork with his fork, “we'll see all about that when daylight comes. You'll find Mr. Firwen and that yaller-hided Samoa buck back here for breakfast, but no whale.”
None of the men made any reply. They knew that Frewen would be the last man to lose a fish through any fault of his own, and only after carefully “drogueing” his line would he part company with it, and that only if the immense creature emptied the line tubs and “sounded.” Then, to save the lives of those in the boat, he would have to cut.
“Guess we'll see that whale to-morrow, anyway, whether Mr. Frewen is fast to him or not,” said the third mate to the cooper, as they met on deck; “he's got a mighty lot of line hanging to him, and, just after the second mate got fast I saw him shaking his flukes and trying to kick out one of the two irons the mate hove into him.”
“Well, that is so; I hope we shall get him. The old man is pretty cranky over it. He hasn't a nice temper even when he's in a good humour, and there will be blue fire blazing if Mr. Frewen does lose the fish after all.”
For four hours the barque made short tacks to the eastward, in which direction the boat had been taken by the whale. The night was fine but dark, the sea very smooth, and the flares which were burnt at intervals on board the barque would render her visible many miles away, and a keen look-out was kept for the boat, but nothing could be discovered of it.
Towards midnight the light air from the eastward died away, and was succeeded by a series of rather sharp rain squalls from the south-west, and Keller, fearing to miss the boat by running past her, hove-to till daylight.
The dawn broke brightly, with a dead calm. Forty pairs of eyes eagerly scanned the surface of the ocean, and in a few minutes there came a cheering cry from aloft.
“Dead whale, oh! Close to on the weather beam.”
“Can you see the boat?” cried Lopez.
“No, sir,” was the reply after a few seconds silence. “Can't see her anywhere.”
“Look on the other side of the whale, you bat!” growled the skipper.
“She's not there, sir,” was the reply.
“Lower away your boats, Mr. Bock and Mr. Lopez,” said Keller in more gracious tones to the third and first officers; “the second mate can't be far away, but why in thunder he didn't hang on to the whale last night I don't know. Take something to eat with you. You will have to tow that whale alongside—this calm is going to last all day.”
Five minutes later the two boats pushed off, and then, as they sped over the glassy surface of the ocean and the huge carcass of the whale was more clearly revealed, Bock called out to his superior officer that he could see a whift {*} on it.
Lopez nodded, but said nothing.
They pulled up alongside, and the mate's boatsteerer stepped out on to the body of Leviathan and pulled out the whift pole, which was firmly embedded in the blubber.
“There's a letter tied round the pole, sir,” he said to his officer, as he got back to the boat again and passed the whift aft.
The “letter” had been carefully wrapped in a strip of oilskin, and then tied around the whift pole by a piece of sail twine. It was a sheet of soiled paper with a few pencilled lines written on it. Lopez read it:—
“Where is Mr. Frewen, sir?” inquired the boatsteerer anxiously.
“Gone for a picnic,” replied the mate laconically. “Now, look lively, my lads. We've got to tow this fish to the ship and 'cut in' before the sharks save us the trouble.”
The quarrel between Keller, a rough, blasphemous-mouthed, and violent-tempered man, and his second officer had arisen over a very simple matter.
Frewen, one of the six sons of a struggling New Hampshire farmer, had received a better education than his brothers, for he was intended for the navy. But at sixteen years of age he realised the condition of the family finances, and shipped on a whaler sailing out of New London. From “'foremast hand with hayseed in his hair,” he became boatsteerer; then followed rapid promotion from fourth to second officer's berth, and at the age of five-and-twenty he was as competent a navigator and as good a seaman and boatheader as ever trod a whaleship's deck. For like many a country-bred boy he had the sea instinct in his bones, inherited perhaps from his progenitors, who were of a seafaring stock in old Devonshire, in that town made for ever famous by Kingsley in “Westward Ho!”
When Frewen joined the Casilda, Keller had taken a great fancy to the young man, whom he soon discovered was a very able officer, and who proved his ability as a good whaleman so amply during the first twelve months of the cruise by never losing a whale once he got fast, that Keller, who was as mean as he was brutal to his crew, relaxed his “hazing” propensities considerably. The Casilda was always known as a “hard” ship and Keller as a “hazer”; but, on the other hand, she was also a lucky ship, and Lopes, the chief mate, who had sailed in her for many years, was a sterling good man, though a strict disciplinarian, and did much for the men to compensate them for Keller's outbursts of savage fury when anything went wrong. So Lopez, Frewen, and his fellow-officers “worked” together, and the crew “worked” with them, and the Casilda became a fairly happy ship, as well as a lucky one, for Keller, after long years, began to realise that it was bad policy to ill-treat a willing crew who would give him a “full” ship in another six months instead of deserting one by one or in batches at every island touched at in the South Seas.
And Frewen was a mascotte, and his half-caste boat-steerer was another, for whenever a pod of whales were sighted the second mate's boat was invariably the first to get fast, and on one glorious day off Sunday Island Frewen's boat killed three sperms—a bull and two cows—and the four other boats each got one or two, so that for over a week, in a calm sea, and under a cloudless sky of blue by day and night, “cutting in” and “trying-out” went on merrily, and the cooper and his mates toiled like Trojans, setting-up fresh barrels; and the smoke and glare of the try-works from the deck of the Casilda lit up the placid ocean for many a mile, whilst hordes of blue sharks rived and tore and ripped off the rich blubber from the whales lying alongside waiting to be cut-in, and Keller shot or lanced them by the score as he stood on the cutting-in stage or in one of the boats made fast to the chains on the free side.
Fourteen months out, as the Casilda was cruising northward, intending to touch at one of the Navigator's Islands (Samoa) to refresh, the first trouble occurred. Cheyne, Frewen's boatsteerer, who was a splendidly built, handsome young fellow of twenty-four years of age, received a rather severe injury to his right foot whilst a heavy baulk of timber was being “fleeted” along the deck. Frewen, who was much attached to him, dressed his foot as well as the rough appliances on board would allow, and then reported him to the captain as unfit for duty.
Keller growled something about all “darned half-breeds” being glad of any excuse to shirk duty.
Frewen took him up sharply: “This man is no shirker, sir. He is as good a man as ever 'stood up' to strike a whale. Did you ever see a better one?”
Keller looked at his second officer with fourteen months' repressed brutality glowering in his savage eyes.
“I'm the captain of this ship. Just you mind that. I reckon I can't be taught much by any college buster.”
Frewen's hands clenched, but he replied quietly, though he was inwardly raging at Keller's contemptuous manner—
“Just so. You are the captain of this ship, and I know my duty, sir. But I am not the man to be insulted by any one. And I say that my boatsteerer is not fit for duty.”
Keller's retort was of so insulting a character that in another moment the two men—to the intense delight of the crew—were fighting on the after-deck. Lopes and the cooper, as in duty bound, sprang forward and seized their fellow-officer, but the captain, with an oath, bade them stand aside.
“I'll pound you first,” he cried hoarsely to Frewen, “then I'll kick you into the foc'sle.”
The fight lasted for fifteen minutes, and then Lopes and the third mate forced themselves between and separated them. Both men were terribly punished.
“That will do, sir; that will do, Frewen,” said the mate; “do you want to kill each other?”
Keller had some good points about him and a certain amount of humour as well.
“Haow much air yew hurt, Frewen?” he inquired. “I can't exactly see” (both his eyes were fast closing).
“Pretty much like yourself,” replied the officer; then he paused and held out his hand. “Shake hands, sir. I'm sorry we've had this turn.”
“Wa'al, it's mighty poor business, that's a fact,” and Keller took the proffered hand, and then the matter apparently ended.
Early in the morning on the following day whales were raised. There was a stiff breeze and a choppy sea. Three boats, of which Frewen's was one, were lowered. Cheyne, although suffering great pain, insisted on taking his place, and twenty minutes later his officer called out to him to “stand up,” for they were close to the whale—a large cow, which was moving along very slowly, apparently unconscious of the boat's presence.
Then for the first time during the voyage the half-caste missed striking his fish. Unable to sustain himself steadily, owing to his injured foot and the rough sea, he darted his iron a second or two too late. It fell flat on the back of the monstrous creature, which at once sounded in alarm, and next reappeared a mile to windward. For an hour Frewen kept up the chase, and then the ship signalled for all the boats to return, for the wind and sea were increasing, and it was useless for them to attempt to overtake the whales, which were now miles to windward. Neither of the other boats had even come within striking distance of a fish, and consequently Keller was in a vile temper when they returned, and the moment he caught sight of the half-caste boatsteerer he assailed him with a volley of abuse.
The young man listened with sullen resentment dulling his dark face, then as he turned to limp for'ard the captain bade him make haste and get better, and not “try on any soldiering.”
He turned in an instant, his passion completely overmastering him: “I'm no 'soldier,' and as good a man as you, you mean old Gape Cod water-rat. I'll never lift another iron or steer a boat for you as long as I am on this ship.”
Five minutes later he was in irons with a promise of being kept on biscuit and water till he “took back all he had said” in the presence of the ship's company.
“I'll lie here and rot first sir,” he said to Lopez; “my father was an Englishman, and I consider myself as good a boatsteerer and as good a man as any one on board. But I do not mean any disrespect to you, sir.”
Lopez was sorry for the man, but could not say so. “Keep a still tongue between your teeth,” he said roughly, “and I'll talk the old man round by to-morrow.”
“Do as you please, sir. But I won't lift an iron again as long as I am in this ship,” he replied quietly.
He kept his word. On the following morning he was liberated, and in a week's time he had recovered the use of his foot. Then, when the barque was off the Tonga Islands, a large “pod” of whales were sighted. It was a clear, warm day. The sea was as smooth as a lake, and only the faintest air was ruffling the surface of the water. Three miles away were two small, low-lying islands, clad with coco-palms, their white belting of beach glistening like iridescent pearl-shell under the glowing tropic sun.
As the boats were lowered he said to Frewen, “You know what I have said, sir. I won't lift a harpoon again on this cruise; so don't ask me.”
Frewen did not believe him. “Don't be a fool, Randall. We'll show the old man something to-day.”
“I will, sir, if it costs me my life.”
Five minutes later he was in his old place on the for'ard thwart, pulling stolidly, but looking intently at Frewen, whom he loved with a dog-like affection.
Frewen singled out a large bull whale which was lying quite apart from the rest of the “pod” sunning himself, and sometimes rolling lazily from side to side, oblivious of danger. In another five minutes the boat would have been within striking distance.
“Stand up, Randall,” he said.
The half-caste peaked and socketed his oar, and looked at the officer.
“I refuse, sir,” he said quietly.
“Then come aft here,” cried Frewen quickly, with hot anger in his tones.
“No, sir, I will not. I said I would neither lift iron nor steer a boat again,” was the dogged reply.
There was no time to lose. Giving the steer oar to the man pulling the “after-tub oar,” the officer sprang forward and picked up the harpoon just in time, Randall jumping aft smartly enough, and taking the tub man's oar. Ten seconds later Frewen had buried his harpoon up to the socket in the whale, and the line was humming as the boat tore through the water. Then, still keeping his place, he let the whole of one tub of line run out, and then hauled up on it and lanced and killed his fish quietly. Cheyne apparently took no notice, though his heart sank within him when Frewen came aft again, and looked at him with mingled anger and reproach.
Some one of the boat's crew talked of what had occurred, though Frewen said nothing; and that night Cheyne was placed in irons by Keller's orders. At the end of a week he was still manacled and almost starving, but he steadfastly refused to do boatsteerer's duty. Then the captain no longer placed any check on himself, and he swore that he would either make the half-caste yield or else kill him. And he did his best to keep his word.
Nearly a month passed, and then, at Frewen's suggestion, all the officers waited on the captain and begged him to release the unfortunate man; otherwise there was every prospect of the crew mutinying.
“Is he willing to turn to again?” he asked.