I can not conceive any thing more strikingly awful than the butchery of this tremendous leviathan of the deep. Foaming and breaching, he plunged from wave to wave, flinging high in the air torrents of blood and spray. The sea around was literally a sea of blood. At one moment his head was poised in the air; the next, he buried himself in the gory sea, carrying down in his vast wake a whirlpool of foam and slime. But this respite was short. He rose again, rushing furiously upon his enemies; but a slight prick of a lance drove him back with mingled fury and terror. Whichever way he turned, the barbed irons goaded him to desperation. Now and again intensity of agony would cause him to lash the waters with his huge flukes, till the very ocean appeared to heave and tremble at his power. Tossing, struggling, dashing over and over in his agony, he spouted up the last of his heart's blood. Half an hour before he was free as the wave, sporting in all the pride of gigantic strength and unrivaled power. He now lay a lifeless mass: his head toward the sun, his tremendous body heaving to the swell, and his destroyers proudly cheering over their victory!
AN OLD-TIME MATE
Roland F. Coffin
(From "Archibald The Cat and Other Yarns" W. A. Paton, Pubr. N. Y. 1878.)
"You see, sir," said the old sailor, as he set his empty I beer-mug down upon the table, "in them 'ere packet-ship times the captains and mates of them ships thought no small beer of theirselves, and jist believed they was the equals of anybody on the face of the 'arth. They was all men as had riz from low beginnin's havin' all of 'em sarved long afore the mast, and then up through the various grades of third mate, second mate, and so on to mate, and here they usually stuck for ten or fifteen years, and when they did git to be captain arter all this long sarvice. Lord love you, sir, it took two tailors for to make breeches for 'em, and a man might have left a pocket-book onto the side-walk afore 'em with perfect impunity, they never wouldn't have seen it, their noses was always in the air and they never looked down. I knowed one of 'em as used for to pay his barber $100 every time he were in New York for to fix him up. I've seen him in a hard gale of wind on a ship's quarter-deck, with a old sou'wester and pea-jacket on to him, a-handlin' his ship in a sea-way jist as if she'd been a baby, and, to my eye, he looked a heap better then than he did a-struttin' up and down Broadway, rigged up within a inch of his life and a-tryin' for to make people believe he were some great gentleman and no sailor-man at all. Why, anybody as looked at him, with his underpinnin' stretched wide apart like a pair of shear legs, a-rollin' about from one side of the sidewalk to the other, would a-knowed at once that he were a imposter. I've knowed mates arter workin' like horses all day long in Liverpool River, when the time come for to dock the ship, they'd go below and rig theirselves up like parsons; clappin' a white futtock band around their necks, mountin' a white weskit, and shovin' their fists into white beckets for to hide the tar and tan onto 'em. Some of 'em would even go so far as to try and knock off swearin' while they was a-dockin', and to talk perlite and sweet to the men, but I never knowed any one that succeeded intirely in this.
"The great idee were, both with captains and mates, to try and make folks think they was gentlemen and never done no work, and that goin' to sea was the most delightfullest thing in the world, and that all you had for to do were to take yourself out of a bandbox once in a while and sit and let the wind blow you along.
"This 'ere sort of doin' might do very well for the Williamson Square gals, who used for to come down onto the pier-head in great numbers when a ship were dockin', a-lookin' out for their sweethearts, but it didn't pull no wool over a sailor-man's eyes. When they seed the sails nicely unbended and the runnin' gear stopped up and down the riggin', the foot ropes stopped up onto the yards, the mast-heads and yard chafes painted, leadin' trucks blackened, paint work all scrubbed clean, bright work polished, decks white as a hound's tooth, jib-boom rigged in and head-gear snugly stopped up, to'-gallan' and royal yards squared to the most distractin' nicety, topsail yards mast-headed to a exact level and braced up to the same angle, lower yards cock-billed to a exact line, fenders on the side at equal distances and on a line fore and aft; all these things showed that there were a sailor-man mate of that there craft, and it weren't no use of his tryin' to disguise hisself in long toggery.
"I think the proudest chap as ever went mate of them ships were Dick Hewitt, or 'Richard Hewitt, Esq.,' as he used to call hisself. It were well he never got for to be captain, 'cause he would have busted. He never couldn't have stood it, no how; he would a-swelled up and a-exploded. He died in a hospital, a-tumblin' down in a cellar in Broadway and a-breakin' his leg. And the doctor told him two things he'd be to do for to git well, and them were, have his leg cut off and knock off drinkin' beer. And Dick said his leg shouldn't come off, for he'd never be seen wearin' a timber leg, and he'd see the doctor — afore he'd stop drinkin' beer; in which I think he were right, except about the leg, for I've knowed a sailor-man with a timber leg iron fastened, as could git about and aloft as well as the best, though they was annoyin' as lookouts a-walkin' overhead in your watch below. But I knowed a chap once by the name of Dave Wilkinson were as white oak and iron from his starboard thigh down, and if Dave could git his back agin anythin', why, he could mow down whole ranks of men with that there leg. You see, sir, you'd find it difficult for to kick up as high as a man's head, on account of your knee-joint, but Dave weren't troubled with no knee-joint on the starboard side, and when he raised up that leg it jist come nicely level with a man's head,, and were a awful weapon.
"And that's why I think Dick were wrong about the timber leg. But in regards to the beer he were right, of course, for no man never ought for to leave his beer, and that's where these doctors makes a great mistake a-stoppin' a man's grog, which he is accustomed to, and which is healthy for, him, and go to givin' him drugs and sich like, which he ain't use to, and which almost always makes him sick.
"Well, then, the doctor tells Dick he'll die, and Dick said as how he'd never been afeard of that, and he done it accordin'.
"But what I wanted for to tell you about were somethin' which happened when I were afore the mast in the packet-ship Constitution, of which Dick were the mate. We was a-comin' home from Liverpool in the summer time, and had had continual light weather, and was makin' a long passage. We was chock full of passengers, for there weren't many steamers runnin' then — they was only jist a-beginnin'. There were the Cunard line, and there were a French line, which were under the control of the Government, and commanded by navy officers, and it were when Louis Phillip were King.
"Well, as I were sayin' we'd had light weather, and finally, just to the west'ard of the Banks, we gits becalmed intirely, and while we was a-layin' there helpless we seen to the west'ard the smoke of a steamer. Well, there she were, probably only three days out of New York, and you can jist imagine how crazy all our passengers were to git a newspaper from her, for we was forty days out, and all our passengers was business men, 'cause folks didn't travel for pleasure them days.
"So they goes to the old man, and he says as how he don't care; if Mr. Hewitt likes for to git out a boat and board her, and git some newspapers, why he has no objections; and they goes to Dick, and he says 'Sartainly I will,' and he orders a boat manned, and then he goes down and harnesses hisself up, so that we hardly know'd him when he come up on deck ag'in, and he jumps in the boat, and settles hisself in the starn-sheets with great dignity, 'cause he know'd all the wimmin passengers was a-lookin' at him. 'Up oars,' says he; 'let fall; give way,' and off we went, 'cause I were one of that crew, and pulled the stroke oar.