"There's 'stand up' in the waist-boat! There he darts! Hurrah! two boats fast! Haul lively, us, and get this line in!"
The whale seemed staggered by this accumulation of cold iron in his system, and lay wallowing in the trough of the waves. It was a critical moment for him; for Mr. Dunham was getting his lance on the half-cock, ready for darting, and, as the whale suddenly "milled short round" to pass across the head of his boat, the young man saw his advantage, and cried:
"Pull ahead! Pull ahead, and we'll get a 'set' on him! Lay forward. Fisher! Lay forward hard, my lad! right on for his fin! Pull ahead! So, way enough — hold water, all"; and, driven by a strong arm, the sharp lance entered his "life," its bright shank disappearing till the pole brought it up.
"Hold her so!" said the second mate. "Way enough! just hold her so till he rises again!" as the whale hollowed his back under the sea, now crimsoned with his life-tide, and again rising, received the lance anew in his vitals; but the first "set" was enough, and the gush of clotted blood from his spiracle told how effectually it had done its work.
"There," said Father Grafton, who had just got his line gathered in, and was ready to renew the assault, "there's the red flag flying at his nose! Blacksmith, we may as well put up our lance, we shaVt want it to-day. Well done, Mr. Dunham! Thick as tar the first lance! Hold on line, Bunker! heave on a turn!" as the whale, making a dying effort, started up to windward, passing among the Pandora's boats within easy hail.
"Give us your warp. Pitman, if you want a tow," said Bunker in passing to Mr. Ray's boatsteerer.
"Every dog has his day," growled Pitman, in reply.
"Yes. Come aboard to-morrow and I'll give you a 'scrap' for luck."
The whale went in his "flurry," and turned up under the stern of the Pandora, as she luffed to for her boats; but Captain Worth could not afford to lose the breeze long, and, by the time the last boat was on the cranes, his helm was up and his mizzen-topsail shivering. The old ship fell off to her former course, and setting her royal and studding sails, left her more fortunate consort "alone in her glory."
Captain Upton had no occasion to "grease his lance," but seeing that the work was done, and the victory won, made the best of his way on board. He made a short stretch, fetching to windward of us, and then stood along under easy sail, till Mr. Grafton, having "cut a hole" and got his line all clear for running, set a waif for the ship. She then ran down for us, and luffing to handsomely with the head yards aback, and the foretopsail on the cap, the line was "streamed," and led into the "chock." The jib being run down, and the helm lashed a-lee, so as completely to deaden the ship's way, the whale was hauled down to the ship, with the inspiring and time-honored chorus of "Cheery, men!" the burden being led off by Old Jeff; and at ten o'clock, the monster, who when the sun rose appeared like a monarch of the deep sporting in all the consciousness of sovereign power, lay securely chained up alongside the good ship Arethusa.
"Well, Bunker," said the old man to the blushing young boatsteerer, "you plugged this fellow solid, at any rate, if you never do another. The Pandora's crew tried to gaily you, didn't they?"
"Yes, sir," said Bunker, "either me or the whale, I don't know which. But they were too late with their yells."
"Well, I don't know as I can blame Mr. Ray," said the captain. "I suppose he thought, if he could gaily you or the whale, he would stand as good a chance as any of us next rising, as there is no telling, with any certainty, where a gallied whale will come up."[7]
"I don't think Worth feels in very good-humor to-day," continued the old man, turning to Mr. Grafton. "I'm sure I shouldn't, if he had got this whale right under my nose. But it's our turn to crow to-day, and perhaps at another time it may be his. I was mighty afraid at one time he would take all your line before we could get to you. And when I saw the strain slack up suddenly, I was more anxious than ever, for I feared you were loose from him. But it's all right as it is. Couldn't be better — and the weather is promising for taking care of him. The new ship will get her christening now, and she will work all the better for being greased. It is too late to ship the oil home, for I shall not put back to the Western Islands now."
II
"Blacksmith, how long is it since you read 'Robinson Crusoe'?" asked the mate, as he stopped in his walk near the mainmast, and leaned against the topsail-sheet bitts. "Some years, I suppose?"
"No, sir," said I. "The last time I read it was less than one year ago, and I found it as fresh and entertaining as ever."
"No doubt of it," replied Father Grafton. "Nothing connected with my schoolboy days has so firmly stamped itself on my memory as the appearance of the old copy of 'Crusoe,' that I owned for many years; indeed, I carried it to sea with me on my first voyage, and it was accidentally lost overboard. I can see the brown paper and the quaint old type with its f and long s so dangerously alike, and its horrible woodcuts! for it was a copy of a very old edition, and had, no doubt, delighted two or three generations of boys before it fell into my hands. But what reminded me of it to-night is the fact that we shall probably make Juan Fernandez to-morrow."
"Yet this island is not mentioned in the story, I believe," said I.
"No; the scene of the romance lies on the Atlantic side, somewhere near the mouth of the Orinoco; but it is probable that De Foe got the idea from the story of a Scotchman who lived three years on this island."
"O, yes," said I, "I remember the soliloquy of this Selkirk that I used to read and declaim at the country school,
'I am Monarch of all I survey.'
Then I suppose this Selkirk story is really true, is it?"
"Yes, there is no good reason to doubt it. He was taken off the island by the English circumnavigator, Rogers, in 1709, if I remember right."
"Is there any one living on it now?" I asked.
"I don't know. There was no one there the last visit I made to it. But I have heard since that the Chilian government made use of it as a penal settlement, or something of the kind. But we shall not probably land there. What we want is a good haul of fresh fish, and this is just the place to find it. We must muster all the fishing-lines in the ship; the old man has got plenty of hooks; and, by the way, I want you in the morning to get an iron hoop from the cooper and net it across with ropeyarn ('Cooper' will know just what I want), to catch some crawfish."
"What sort of fish are they?" asked I.
"Why, they are a species of the lobster family, and fully equal to any of our lobsters in flavor."
"Juan Fernandez," resumed the mate, "is a name that more correctly belongs to both islands, some seventy or eighty miles apart. The Spaniards called them Mas a tierra and Mas a fuera, from their relative positions, 'more in-shore,' and 'more off'-shore.' The westernmost is still known by its name of Masafuera, but this one seems to have taken 'Juan Fernandez' as its distinctive title."
We stood in near this beautiful island, which is invested with a sort of romantic interest from the circumstances to which the mate alluded; and certainly, I thought, if a man must lead a solitary life for a series of years, this would not be the last place he would select for his hermitage. The larboard and waist-boats were equipped and lowered for the fishing excursion, and we shoved off in high feather. We were provided with convenient anchors which we dropped within a short distance of the rocks, where the water was alive with fish of various kinds, which could be plainly seen darting and winding below us. The lines were hardly down among them when some one hauled a fish into the boat; some one else followed with another; and the sport was fairly begun. Pieces of pork furnished bait to start with; then the fish supplied tempting morsels of their own flesh for the hook, to allure their cannibalic brethren to share their captivity. O, ye, amateur anglers who sit with a rod and fly, tempting little innocent fish to nibble and thinking it not bad sport if you get two or three nibbles an hour, come to Juan Fernandez and find good, hearty, muscular sport, that you will not fall asleep at.
7
This word "gallied" is in constant use among whalemen in the sense of frightened or confused. It is perhaps, a corruption of the obsolete verb, gallow, to be found in old writers. Thus Shakespeare has in King Lear, "The wrathful skies gallow the deep wanderers of the dark."