When Whaling Is An Easy Job
When Whaling Is An Easy Job
Every Sunday, a boat's crew went fishing. We fished with hand lines weighted with lead and having three or four hooks, baited at first with bacon and later with pieces of fresh fish. I never had such fine fishing. The fish bit as fast as we could throw in our lines, and we were kept busy hauling them out of the water. We would fill a whale boat almost to the gunwales in a few hours. With the return of the first fishing expedition, the sailors had dreams of a feast, but they were disappointed. The fish went to the captain's table or were salted away in barrels for the cabin's future use. The sailors, however, enjoyed the fun. Many of them kept lines constantlyover the brig's sides, catching skates, soles, and little sharks.
By the time we reached Turtle bay, it was no longer a secret that we would get only a dollar for our year's voyage. As a result, a feverish spirit of discontent began to manifest itself among those forward and plans to run away became rife.
We were anchored about a half mile from shore, and after looking over the situation, I made up my mind to try to escape. Except for an officer and a boatsteerer who stood watch, all hands were asleep below at night. Being a good swimmer, I planned to slip over the bow in the darkness and swim ashore. Once on land, I figured it would be an easy matter to cross the Sierras and reach a Mexican settlement on the Gulf of California.
Possibly the officers got wind of the runaway plots brewing in the forecastle, for Captain Winchester came forward one evening, something he never had done before, and fell into gossipy talk with the men.
"Have you noticed that pile of stones with across sticking in it on the harbor head?" he asked in a casual sort of way.
Yes, we had all noticed it from the moment we dropped anchor, and had wondered what it was.
"That," said the captain impressively, "is a grave. Whaling vessels have been coming to Turtle bay for years to paint ship and overhaul. Three sailors on a whaler several years ago thought this was a likely place in which to escape. They managed to swim ashore at night and struck into the hills. They expected to find farms and villages back inland. They didn't know that the whole peninsula of Lower California is a waterless desert from one end to the other. They had some food with them and they kept going for days. No one knows how far inland they traveled, but they found neither inhabitants nor water and their food was soon gone.
"When they couldn't stand it any longer and were half dying from thirst and hunger, they turned back for the coast. By the time they returned to Turtle bay their ship had sailed awayand there they were on a desert shore without food or water and no way to get either. I suppose they camped on the headland in the hope of hailing a passing ship. But the vessels that pass up and down this coast usually keep out of sight of land. Maybe the poor devils sighted a distant topsail—no one knows—but if they did the ship sank beyond the horizon without paying any attention to their frantic signals. So they died miserably there on the headland.
"Next year, a whale ship found their bodies and erected a cairn of stones marked by the cross you see over the spot where the three sailors were buried together. This is a bad country to run away in," the captain added. "No food, no water, no inhabitants. It's sure death for a runaway."
Having spun this tragic yarn, Captain Winchester went aft again, feeling, no doubt, that he had sowed seed on fertile soil. The fact is his story had an instant effect. Most of the men abandoned their plans to escape, at least for the time being, hoping a more favorable opportunity would present itself when we reached the Hawaiianislands. But I had my doubts. I thought it possible the captain merely had "put over" a good bluff.
Next day I asked Little Johnny, the boatsteerer, if it were true as the captain had said, that Lower California was an uninhabited desert. He assured me it was and to prove it, he brought out a ship's chart from the cabin and spread it before me. I found that only two towns throughout the length and breadth of the peninsula were set down on the map. One of these was Tia Juana on the west coast just south of the United States boundary line and the other was La Paz on the east coast near Cape St. Lucas, the southern tip of the peninsula. Turtle bay was two or three hundred miles from either town.
That settled it with me. I didn't propose to take chances on dying in the desert. I preferred a whaler's forecastle to that.
TURTLES AND PORPOISES
We slipped out of Turtle bay one moonlight night and stood southward. We were now in sperm whale waters and the crews of the whale boats were selected. Captain Winchester was to head the starboard boat; Mr. Landers the larboard boat; and Gabriel the waist boat. Long John was to act as boatsteerer for Mr. Winchester, Little Johnny for Mr. Landers, and Mendez for Gabriel. The whale boats were about twenty-five feet long, rigged with leg-of-mutton sails and jibs. The crew of each consisted of an officer known as a boat-header, who sat in the stern and wielded the tiller; a boatsteerer or harpooner, whose position was in the bow; and four sailors who pulled the stroke, midship, tub, and bow oars. Each boathad a tub in which four hundred fathoms of whale line were coiled and carried two harpoons and a shoulder bomb-gun. I was assigned to the midship oar of Gabriel's boat.
Let me take occasion just here to correct a false impression quite generally held regarding whaling. Many persons—I think, most persons—have an idea that in modern whaling, harpoons are fired at whales from the decks of ships. This is true only of 'long-shore whaling. In this trade, finbacks and the less valuable varieties of whales are chased by small steamers which fire harpoons from guns in the bows and tow the whales they kill to factories along shore, where blubber, flesh, and skeleton are turned into commercial products. Many published articles have familiarized the public with this method of whaling. But whaling on the sperm grounds of the tropics and on the right whale and bowhead grounds of the polar seas is much the same as it has always been. Boats still go on the backs of whales. Harpoons are thrown by hand into the great animals as of yore. Whales still run away with the boats, pulling them with amazing speedthrough walls of split water. Whales still crush boats with blows of their mighty flukes and spill their crews into the sea.
There is just as much danger and just as much thrill and excitement in the whaling of to-day as there was in that of a century ago. Neither steamers nor sailing vessels that cruise for sperm and bowhead and right whales nowadays have deck guns of any sort, but depend entirely upon the bomb-guns attached to harpoons and upon shoulder bomb-guns wielded from the whale boats.
In the old days, after whales had been harpooned, they were stabbed to death with long, razor-sharp lances. The lance is a thing of the past. The tonite bomb has taken its place as an instrument of destruction. In the use of the tonite bomb lies the chief difference between modern whaling and the whaling of the old school.
The modern harpoon is the same as it has been since the palmy days of the old South Sea sperm fisheries. But fastened on its iron shaft between the wooden handle and the spear point is a brass cylinder an inch in diameter, perhaps, and abouta foot long. This cylinder is a tonite bomb-gun. A short piece of metal projects from the flat lower end. This is the trigger. When the harpoon is thrown into the buttery, blubber-wrapped body of the whale, it sinks in until the whale's skin presses the trigger up into the gun and fires it with a tiny sound like the explosion of an old-fashioned shotgun cap. An instant later a tonite bomb explodes with a muffled roar in the whale's vitals.
The Arctic Ocean whaling fleet which sails out of San Francisco and which in the year of my voyage numbered thirty vessels, makes its spring rendezvous in the Hawaiian Islands. Most of the ships leave San Francisco in December and reach Honolulu in March. The two or three months spent in this leisurely voyage are known in whaler parlance as "between seasons." On the way to the islands the ships cruise for sperm whales and sometimes lower for finbacks, sulphur-bottoms, California grays, and even black fish, to practice their green hand crews.
Captain Winchester did not care particularly whether he took any sperm whales or not, thoughsperm oil is still valuable. The brig was not merely a blubber-hunter. Her hold was filled with oil tanks which it was hoped would be filled before we got back, but the chief purpose of the voyage was the capture of right and bowhead whales—the great baleen whales of the North.
As soon as we left Turtle Bay, a lookout for whales was posted. During the day watches, a boatsteerer and a sailor sat on the topsail yard for two hours at a stretch and scanned the sea for spouts. We stood down the coast of Lower California and in a few days, were in the tide-rip which is always running off Cape St. Lucas, where the waters of the Pacific meet a counter-current from the Gulf of California. We rounded Cape St. Lucas and sailed north into the gulf, having a distant view of La Paz, a little town backed by gray mountains. Soon we turned south again, keeping close to the Mexican coast for several days. I never learned how far south we went, but we must have worked pretty well toward the equator, for when we stood out across the Pacific for the Hawaiian Islands, our course was northwesterly.
I saw my first whales one morning while working in the bows with the watch under Mr. Lander's supervision. A school of finbacks was out ahead moving in leisurely fashion toward the brig. There were about twenty of them and the sea was dotted with their fountains. "Blow!" breathed old man Landers with mild interest as though to himself. "Blow!" boomed Captain Winchester in his big bass voice from the quarter-deck. "Nothin' but finbacks, sir," shouted the boatsteerer from the mast-head. "All right," sang back the captain. "Let 'em blow." It was easy for these old whalers even at this distance to tell they were not sperm whales. Their fountains rose straight into the air. A sperm whale's spout slants up from the water diagonally.
The whales were soon all about the ship, seemingly unafraid, still traveling leisurely, their heads rising and falling rhythmically, and at each rise blowing up a fountain of mist fifteen feet high. The fountains looked like water; some water surely was mixed with them; but I was told that the mist was the breath of the animalsmade visible by the colder air. The breath came from the blow holes in a sibilant roar that resembled no sound I had ever heard. If one can imagine a giant of fable snoring in his sleep, one may have an idea of the sound of the mighty exhalation. The great lungs whose gentle breathing could shoot a jet of spray fifteen feet into the air must have had the power of enormous bellows.
Immense coal-black fellows these finbacks were—some at least sixty or seventy feet long. One swam so close to the brig that when he blew, the spray fell all about me, wetting my clothes like dew. The finback is a baleen whale and a cousin of the right whale and the bowhead. Their mouths are edged with close-set slabs of baleen, which, however, is so short that it is worthless for commercial purposes. They are of much slenderer build than the more valuable species of whale. Their quickness and activity make them dangerous when hunted in the boats, but their bodies are encased in blubber so thin that it is as worthless as their bone. Consequently theyare not hunted unless a whaling ship is hard up for oil.
We gradually worked into the trade winds that blew steadily from the southeast. These winds stayed with us for several weeks or rather we stayed with the winds; while in them it was rarely necessary to take in or set a sail or brace a yard. After we had passed through these aerial rivers, flowing through definite, if invisible, banks, we struck the doldrums—areas of calm between wind currents—they might be called whirlpools of stillness. Later in the day light, fitful breezes finally pushed us through them into the region of winds again.
The slow voyage to the Hawaiian islands—on the sperm whale grounds, we cruised under short sail—might have proved monotonous if we had not been kept constantly busy and if diverting incidents had not occurred almost every day. Once we sighted three immense turtles sunning themselves on the sea. To the captain they held out prospect of soups and delicate dishes for the cabin table, and with Long John as boatsteerer,a boat was lowered for them. I expected it would be difficult to get within darting distance. What was my surprise to see the turtles, with heads in the air and perfectly aware of their danger, remain upon the surface until the boat was directly upon them. The fact was they could not go under quickly; the big shells kept them afloat. Long John dropped his harpoon crashing through the shell of one of the turtles, flopped it into the boat, and then went on without particular hurry, and captured the other two in the same way. The cabin feasted for several days on the delicate flesh of the turtles; the forecastle got only a savory smell from the galley, as was usual.
We ran into a school of porpoises on another occasion—hundreds of them rolling and tumbling about the ship, like fat porkers on a frolic. Little Johnny took a position on the forecastle head with a harpoon, the line from which had been made fast to the fore-bitt. As a porpoise rose beneath him, he darted his harpoon straight into its back. The sea pig went wriggling under, leaving the water dyed with its blood. It was hauled aboard, squirming and twisting. LittleJohnny harpooned two more before the school took fright and disappeared. The porpoises were cleaned and some of their meat, nicely roasted, was sent to the forecastle. It made fine eating, tasting something like beef.
The steward was an inveterate fisherman and constantly kept a baited hook trailing in the brig's wake, the line tied to the taff-rail. He caught a great many bonitos and one day landed a dolphin. We had seen many of these beautiful fish swimming about the ship—long, graceful and looking like an animate streak of blue sky. The steward's dolphin was about five feet long. I had often seen in print the statement that dolphins turned all colors of the rainbow in dying and I had as often seen the assertion branded as a mere figment of poetic imagination. Our dolphin proved the truth of the poetic tradition. As life departed, it changed from blue to green, bronze, salmon, gold, and gray, making death as beautiful as a gorgeous kaleidoscope.
We saw flying fish every day—great "coveys" of them, one may say. They frequently flew several hundred yards, fluttering their webbedside fins like the wings of a bird, sometimes rising fifteen to twenty feet above the water, and curving and zigzagging in their flight. More than once they flew directly across the ship and several fell on deck. I was talking with Kaiuli, the Kanaka, one night when we heard a soft little thud on deck. I should have paid no attention but Kaiuli was alert on the instant. "Flying feesh," he cried zestfully and rushed off to search the deck. He found the fish and ate it raw, smacking his lips over it with great gusto. The Hawaiian islanders, he told me, esteem raw flying fish a great delicacy.
I never saw water so "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue" as in the middle of the Pacific where we had some four miles of water under us. It was as blue as indigo. At night, the sea seemed afire with riotous phosphorescence. White flames leaped about the bows where the brig cut the water before a fresh breeze; the wake was a broad, glowing path. When white caps were running every wave broke in sparks and tongues of flame, and the ocean presented the appearance of a prairie swept by fire. A big shark cameswimming about the ship one night and it shone like a living incandescence—a silent, ghost-like shape slowly gliding under the brig and out again.
The idle night watches in the tropics were great times for story telling. The deep-water sailors were especially fond of this way of passing the time. While the green hands were engaging in desultory talk and wishing for the bell to strike to go back to their bunks, these deep-water fellows would be pacing up and down or sitting on deck against the bulwarks, smoking their pipes and spinning yarns to each other. The stories as a rule were interminable and were full of "Then he says" and "Then the other fellow says." It was a poor story that did not last out a four-hour watch and many of them were regular "continued in our next" serials, being cut short at the end of one watch to be resumed in the next.
No matter how long-winded or prosy the narrative, the story teller was always sure of an audience whose attention never flagged for an instant. The boyish delight of these full-grownmen in stories amazed me. I had never seen anything like it. Once in a while a tale was told that was worth listening to, but most of them were monotonously uninteresting. They bored me.
THE A, B, C OF WHALES
One damp morning, with frequent showers falling here and there over the sea and not a drop wetting the brig, Captain Winchester suddenly stopped pacing up and down the weather side of the quarter-deck, threw his head up into the wind, and sniffed the air.
"There's sperm whale about as sure as I live," he said to Mr. Landers. "I smell 'em."
Mr. Landers inhaled the breeze through his nose in jerky little sniffs.
"No doubt about it," he replied. "You could cut the smell with a knife."
I was at the wheel and overheard this talk. I smiled. These old sea dogs, I supposed, were having a little joke. The skipper saw the grin on my face.
"Humph, you don't believe I smell whale, eh?" he said. "I can smell whale like a bird dog smells quail. Take a sniff at the wind. Can't you smell it yourself?"
I gave a few hopeful sniffs.
"No," I said, "I can't smell anything unless, perhaps, salt water."
"You've got a poor smeller," returned the captain. "The wind smells rank and oily. That means sperm whale. If I couldn't smell it, I could taste it. I'll give you a plug of tobacco, if we don't raise sperm before dark."
He didn't have to pay the tobacco. Within an hour, we raised a sperm whale spouting far to windward and traveling in the same direction as the brig. The captain hurried to the cabin for his binoculars. As he swung himself into the shrouds to climb to the mast-head, he shouted to me, "Didn't I tell you I could smell 'em?" The watch was called. The crew of the captain's boat was left to work the ship and Mr. Landers and Gabriel lowered in the larboard and waist boats. Sails were run up and we went skimming away on our first whale hunt. We had a longbeat to windward ahead of us and as the whale was moving along at fair speed, remaining below fifteen minutes or so between spouts, it was slow work cutting down the distance that separated us from it.
"See how dat spout slant up in de air?" remarked old Gabriel whom the sight of our first sperm had put in high good humor.
We looked to where the whale was blowing and saw its fountain shoot into the air diagonally, tufted with a cloudy spread of vapor at the top.
"You know why it don't shoot straight up?"
No one knew.
"Dat feller's blow hole in de corner ob his square head—dat's why," said Gabriel. "He blow his fountain out in front of him. Ain't no udder kind o' whale do dat. All de udder kind blow straight up. All de differ in de worl' between dat sperm whale out dere and de bowhead and right whale up nort'. Ain't shaped nothin' a-tall alike. Bowhead and right whale got big curved heads and big curved backs. Sperm whale's about one-third head and his back ain't got no bow to it—not much—jest lies straightout behind his head. He look littler in de water dan de right and bowhead whale. But he ain't. He's as big as de biggest whale dat swims de sea. I've seen a 150 barrel sperm dat measure seventy feet.
"Blow!" added the old negro as he caught sight of the whale spouting again.
"Bowhead and right whale got no teeth," he continued. "Dey got only long slabs o' baleen hung wit' hair in de upper jaw. Sperm whale got teeth same as you and me—about twenty on a side and all in his lower jaw. Ain't got no teeth in his upper jaw a-tall. His mouth is white inside and his teeth stand up five or six inches out o' his gums and are wide apart and sharp and pointed and look jes' like de teeth of a saw. Wen he open his mouth, his lower jaw fall straight down and his mouth's big enough to take a whale boat inside.
"Sperm whale's fightin' whale. He fight wit' his tail and his teeth. He knock a boat out de water wit' his flukes and he scrunch it into kindlin' wood wit' his teeth. He's got fightin' sense too—he's sly as a fox. W'en I was young feller,I was in de sperm trade mysel' and used to ship out o' New Bedford round Cape o' Good Hope for sperm whale ground in Indian Ocean and Sout' Pacific. Once I go on top a sperm whale in a boat an' he turn flukes and lash out wit' his tail but miss us. Den he bring up his old head and take a squint back at us out o' his foxy little eye and begin to slew his body roun' till he get his tail under de boat. But de boatheader too smart fer him and we stern oars and get out o' reach. But de whale didn't know we done backed out o' reach and w'en he bring up dat tail it shoot out o' de water like it was shot out o' a cannon. Mighty fine fer us he miss us dat time.
"But dat don't discourage dat whale a-tall. He swim round and slew round and sight at us out o' his eye and at las' he get under de boat. Den he lift it on de tip o' his tail sky-high and pitch us all in de water. Dat was jes' what he been working for. He swim away and turn round and come shootin' back straight fer dat boat and w'en he get to it, he crush it wit' his teeth and chew it up and shake his head like a mad bulldoguntil dere warn't nothin' left of dat boat but a lot o' kindlin' wood. But dat warn't all. He swim to a man who wuz lying across an oar to keep afloat and he chew dat man up and spit him out in li'l pieces and we ain't never see nothin' o' dat feller again.
"Guess that whale was goin' to give us all de same medicine, but he ain't have time. De udder boats come up and fill him full o' harpoons and keep stickin' der lances into him and kill him right where he lays and he never had no chance to scoff the rest o' us. But if it ain't fer dem boats, I guess dat feller eat us all jes' like plum duff. Sperm whale, some fighter, believe me.
"Dere he white waters—blow!" added Gabriel as the whale came to the surface again.
"Sperm whale try out de bes' oil," the garrulous old whaleman went on. "Bowhead and right whale got thicker blubber and make more oil, but sperm whale oil de bes'. He got big cistern—what dey call a 'case'—in de top ob his head and it's full o' spermaceti, sloshing about in dere and jes' as clear as water. His old headis always cut off and hoist on deck to bale out dat case. Many times dey find ambergrease (ambergis) floating beside a dead sperm whale. It's solid and yellowish and stuck full o' cuttle feesh beaks dat de whale's done swallowed but ain't digest. Dey makes perfume out o' dat ambergrease and it's worth its weight in gold. I've offen seen it in chunks dat weighed a hundred pounds.
"You see a sperm whale ain't eat nothin' but cuttle feesh—giant squid, dey calls 'em, or devil feesh. Dey certainly is terrible fellers—is dem devil feesh. Got arms twenty or thirty feet long wit' sucking discs all over 'em and a big fat body in de middle ob dese snaky arms, wit' big pop-eyes as big as water buckets and a big black beak like a parrot's to tear its food wit'. Dose devil feesh. Dey certainly is terrible fellers—is dem sperm whale nose 'em out and eat 'em. Some time dey comes to de top and de whale and de cuttle feesh fights it out. I've hearn old whalers say dey seen fights between sperm whale and cuttle feesh but I ain't never seen dat and I reckon mighty few fellers ever did. But whena sperm whale is killed, he spews out chunks o' cuttle feesh and I've seen de water about a dead sperm thick wit' white chunks of cuttle feesh as big as a sea ches' and wit' de suckin' disc still on 'em.
"Blow!" said Gabriel again with his eyes on the whale. "Dat feesh certainly some traveler."
We were hauling closer to the whale. I could see it distinctly by this time and could note how square and black its head was. Its appearance might be compared not inaptly to a box-car glistening in the sun under a fresh coat of black paint. It did not cut the water but pushed it in white foam in front of it.
"Sperm pretty scarce nowadays," Gabriel resumed. "Nothing like as plentiful in Pacific waters as dey used to be in de ole days. Whalers done pretty well thinned 'em out. But long ago, it used to be nothin' to see schools of a hundred, mostly cows wit' three or four big bulls among 'em."
"Any difference between a bowhead and a right whale?" some one asked.
"O good Lord, yes," answered Gabriel."Big difference. Right whale thinner whale dan a bowhead, ain't got sech thick blubber neither. He's quicker in de water and got nothin' like such long baleen. You ketch right whale in Behring Sea. I ain't never see none in de Arctic Ocean. You ketch bowhead both places. Right whale fightin' feesh, too, but he ain't so dangerous as a sperm."
Let me add that I give this statement of the old whaleman for what it is worth. All books I have ever read on the subject go on the theory that the Greenland or right whale is the same animal as the bowhead. We lowered for a right whale later in the voyage in Behring Sea. To my untrained eyes, it looked like a bowhead which we encountered every few days while on the Arctic Ocean whaling grounds. But there was no doubt or argument about it among the old whalemen aboard. To them it was a "right whale" and nothing else. Old Gabriel may have known what he was talking about. Despite the naturalists, whalers certainly make a pronounced distinction.
By the time Gabriel had imparted all this information,we had worked to within a half mile of our whale which was still steaming along at the rate of knots. They say a sperm whale has ears so small they are scarcely detected, but it has a wonderfully keen sense of hearing for all that. Our whale must have heard us or seen us. At any rate it bade us a sudden good-bye and scurried off unceremoniously over the rim of the world. The boats kept on along the course it was heading for over an hour, but the whale never again favored us with so much as a distant spout. Finally signals from the brig's mast-head summoned us aboard.
As the men had had no practice in the boats before, both boats lowered sail and we started to row back to the vessel. We had pulled about a mile when Mendez, who was acting as boatsteerer, said quietly, "Blow! Blackfish dead ahead."
"Aye, aye," replied Gabriel. "Now stand by, Tomas. I'll jes' lay you aboard one o' dem blackfeesh and we'll teach dese green fellers somethin' 'bout whalin'."
There were about fifty blackfish in the school.They are a species of small toothed whale, from ten to twenty feet long, eight or ten feet in circumference and weighing two or three tons. They were gamboling and tumbling like porpoises. Their black bodies flashed above the surface in undulant curves and I wondered if, when seen at a distance, these little cousins of the sperm had not at some time played their part in establishing the myth of the sea serpent.
"Get ready, Tomas," said Gabriel as we drew near the school.
"Aye, aye, sir," responded Mendez.
Pulling away as hard as we could, we shot among the blackfish. Mendez selected a big one and drove his harpoon into its back. Almost at the same time Mr. Lander's boat became fast to another. Our fish plunged and reared half out of water, rolled and splashed about, finally shot around in a circle and died. Mr. Lander's fish was not fatally hit and when it became apparent it would run away with a tub of line, Little Johnny, the boatsteerer, cut adrift and let it go. Mendez cut our harpoon free and left our fish weltering on the water. Blackfish yield a fairlygood quality of oil, but one was too small a catch to potter with. Our adventure among the blackfish was merely practice for the boat crews to prepare them for future encounters with the monarchs of the deep.
THE NIGHT KING
The crew called Tomas Mendez, the acting third mate, the "Night King." I have forgotten what forecastle poet fastened the name upon him, but it fitted like a glove. In the day watches when the captain and mate were on deck, he was only a quite, unobtrusive little negro, insignificant in size and with a bad case of rheumatism. But at night when the other officers were snoring in their bunks below and the destinies of the brig were in his hands, he became an autocrat who ruled with a hand of iron.
He was as black as a bowhead's skin—a lean, scrawny, sinewy little man, stooped about the shoulders and walking with a slight limp. His countenance was imperious. His lips were thinand cruel. His eyes were sharp and sinister. His ebony skin was drawn so tightly over the frame-work of his face that it almost seemed as if it would crack when he smiled. His nose had a domineering Roman curve. He carried his head high. In profile, this little blackamoor suggested the mummified head of some old Pharaoh.
He was a native of the Cape Verde islands. He spoke English with the liquid burr of a Latin. His native tongue was Portuguese. No glimmer of education relieved his mental darkness. It was as though his outside color went all the way through. He could neither read nor write, but he was a good sailor and no better whaleman ever handled a harpoon or laid a boat on a whale's back. For twenty years he had been sailing as boatsteerer on whale ships, and to give the devil his due, he had earned a name for skill and courage in a thousand adventures among sperm, bowhead, and right whales in tropical and frozen seas.
Waiting for the Whale to Breach
Waiting for the Whale to Breach
My first impression of the Night King stands out in my memory with cameo distinctness. In the bustle and confusion of setting sails, just after the tug had cut loose from us outside Golden Gate heads, I saw Mendez, like an ebony statue, standing in the waist of the ship, an arm resting easily on the bulwarks, singing out orders in a clear, incisive voice that had in it the ring of steel.
When I shipped, it had not entered my mind that any but white men would be of the ship's company. It was with a shock like a blow in the face that I saw this little colored man singing out orders. I wondered in a dazed sort of way if he was to be in authority over me. I was not long in doubt. When calm had succeeded the first confusion and the crew had been divided into watches, Captain Winchester announced from the break of the poop that "Mr." Mendez would head the port watch. That was my watch. While the captain was speaking, "Mr." Mendez stood like a black Napoleon and surveyed us long and silently. Then suddenly he snapped out a decisive order and the white men jumped to obey. The Night King had assumed his throne.
The Night King and I disliked each other from the start. It may seem petty now that it's all past, but I raged impotently in the bitterness of outraged pride at being ordered about by this black overlord of the quarter-deck. He was not slow to discover my smoldering resentment and came to hate me with a cordiality not far from classic. He kept me busy with some silly job when the other men were smoking their pipes and spinning yarns. If I showed the left-handedness of a landlubber in sailorizing he made me stay on deck my watch below to learn the ropes. If there was dirt or litter to be shoveled overboard, he sang out for me.
"Clean up dat muck dere, you," he would say with fine contempt.
The climax of his petty tyrannies came one night on the run to Honolulu when he charged me with some trifling infraction of ship's rules, of which I was not guilty, and ordered me aloft to sit out the watch on the fore yard. The yard was broad, the night was warm, the ship was traveling on a steady keel, and physically the punishment was no punishment at all. There wasno particular ignominy in the thing, either, for it was merely a joke to the sailors. The sting of it was in having to take such treatment from this small colored person without being able to resent it or help myself.
The very next morning I was awakened by the cry of the lookout on the topsail yard.
"Blow! Blow! There's his old head. Blo—o—o—w! There he ripples. There goes flukes." Full-lunged and clear, the musical cry came from aloft like a song with little yodling breaks in the measure. It was the view-halloo of the sea, and it quickened the blood and set the nerves tingling.
"Where away?" shouted the captain, rushing from the cabin with his binoculars.
"Two points on the weather bow, sir," returned the lookout.
For a moment nothing was to be seen but an expanse of yeasty sea. Suddenly into the air shot a fountain of white water—slender, graceful, spreading into a bush of spray at the top. A great sperm was disporting among the white caps.
"Call all hands and clear away the boats," yelled the captain.
Larboard and waist boats were lowered from the davits. Their crews scrambled over the ship's side, the leg-o'-mutton sails were hoisted, and the boats, bending over as the wind caught them, sped away on the chase. The Night King went as boatsteerer of the waist boat. I saw him smiling to himself as he shook the kinks out of his tub-line and laid his harpoons in position in the bows—harpoons with no bomb-guns attached to the spear-shanks.
In the distance, a slow succession of fountains gleamed in the brilliant tropical sunshine like crystal lamps held aloft on fairy pillars. Suddenly the tell-tale beacons of spray went out. The whale had sounded. Over the sea, the boats quartered like baffled foxhounds to pick up the lost trail.
Between the ship and the boats, the whale came quietly to the surface at last and lay perfectly still, taking its ease, sunning itself and spouting lazily. The captain, perched in the ship's cross-trees, signalled its position with flags,using a code familiar to whalemen. The Night King caught the message first. He turned quickly to the boatheader at the tiller and pointed. Instantly the boat came about, the sailors shifted from one gunwale to the other, the big sail swung squarely out and filled. All hands settled themselves for the run to close quarters.
With thrilling interest, I watched the hunt from the ship's forward bulwarks, where I stood grasping a shroud to prevent pitching overboard. Down a long slant of wind, the boat ran free with the speed of a greyhound, a white plume of spray standing high on either bow. The Night King stood alert and cool, one foot on the bow seat, balancing a harpoon in his hands. The white background of the bellying sail threw his tense figure into relief. Swiftly, silently, the boat stole upon its quarry until but one long sea lay between. It rose upon the crest of the wave and poised there for an instant like some great white-winged bird of prey. Then sweeping down the green slope, it struck the whale bows-on and beached its keel out of the water on its glistening back. As it struck, the Night King let fly oneharpoon and another, driving them home up to the wooden hafts with all the strength of his lithe arms.
The sharp bite of the iron in its vitals stirred the titanic mass of flesh and blood from perfect stillness into a frenzy of sudden movement that churned the water of the sea into white froth. The great head went under, the giant back curved down like the whirling surface of some mighty fly-wheel, the vast flukes, like some black demon's arm, shot into the air. Left and right and left again, the great tail thrashed, smiting the sea with thwacks which could have been heard for miles. It struck the boat glancingly with its bare tip, yet the blow stove a great hole in the bottom timbers, lifted the wreck high in air, and sent the sailors sprawling into the sea. Then the whale sped away with the speed of a limited express. It had not been vitally wounded. Over the distant horizon, it passed out of sight, blowing up against the sky fountains of clear water unmixed with blood.
The other boat hurried to the rescue and the crew gathered up the half-drowned sailorsperched on the bottom of the upturned boat or clinging to floating sweeps. Fouled in the rigging of the sail, held suspended beneath the wreck in the green crystal of the sea water, they found the Night King, dead.
When the whale crushed the boat—at the very moment, it must have been—the Night King had snatched the knife kept fastened in a sheath on the bow thwart and with one stroke of the razor blade, severed the harpoon lines. He thus released the whale and prevented it from dragging the boat away in its mad race. The Night King's last act had saved the lives of his companions.
I helped lift the body over the rail. We laid it on the quarter deck near the skylight. It lurched and shifted in a ghastly sort of way as the ship rolled, the glazed eyes open to the blue sky. The captain's Newfoundland dog came and sniffed at the corpse. Sheltered from the captain's eye behind the galley, the Kanaka cabin boy shook a furtive fist at the dead man and ground out between clenched teeth, "You black devil, you'll never kick me again." Standing notten feet away, the mate cracked a joke to the second mate and the two laughed uproariously. The work of the ship went on all around.
Looking upon the dead thing lying there, I thought of the pride with which the living man had borne himself in the days of his power. I beheld in fancy the silent, lonely, imperious little figure, pacing to and fro on the weather side of the quarter-deck—to and fro under the stars. I saw him stop in the darkness by the wheel, as his custom was, to peer down into the lighted binnacle and say in vibrant tones, "Keep her steady," or "Let her luff." I saw him buttoned up in his overcoat to keep the dew of the tropical night from his rheumatic joints, slip down the poop ladder and stump forward past the try-works to see how things fared in the bow. Again I heard his nightly cry to the lookout on the forecastle-head, "Keep a bright lookout dere, you," and saw him limp back to continue his vigil, pacing up and down. The qualities that had made him hated when he was indeed the Night King flooded back upon me, but I did not forget the courage of my enemy that had redeemedthem all and made him a hero in the hour of death.
In the afternoon, old Nelson sat on the deck beside the corpse and with palm and needle fashioned a long canvas bag. Into this the dead man was sewed with a weight of brick and sand at his feet.
At sunset, when all hands were on deck for the dog watch, they carried the body down on the main deck and with feet to the sea, laid it on the gang-plank which had been removed from the rail. There in the waist the ship's company gathered with uncovered heads. Over all was the light of the sunset, flushing the solemn, rough faces and reddening the running white-caps of the sea. The captain called me to him and placed a Bible in my hands.
"Read a passage of scripture," he said.
Dumbfounded that I should be called upon to officiate at the burial service over the man I had hated, I took my stand on the main hatch at the head of the body and prepared to obey orders. No passage to fit my singular situation occurred to me and I opened the book at random.The leaves fell apart at the seventh chapter of Matthew and I read aloud the section beginning:
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."
At the close of the reading the captain called for "The Sweet Bye and Bye" and the crew sang the verses of the old hymn solemnly. When the full-toned music ceased, two sailors tilted the gang-plank upwards and the remains of the Night King slid off and plunged into the ocean.
As the body slipped toward the water, a Kanaka sailor caught up a bucket of slop which he had set aside for the purpose, and dashed its filth over the corpse from head to foot. Wide-eyed with astonishment, I looked to see instant punishment visited upon this South Sea heathen who so flagrantly violated the sanctities of the dead. But not a hand was raised, not a word of disapproval was uttered. The Kanaka had but followed a whaler's ancient custom. The parting insult to the dead was meant to discourage the ghost from ever coming back to haunt the brig.
DREAMS OF LIBERTY
At midnight after the burial, we raised the volcanic fire of Mauna Loa dead ahead. Sailors declare that a gale always follows a death at sea and the wind that night blew hard. But we cracked on sail and next morning we were gliding in smooth water along the shore of the island of Hawaii with the great burning mountain towering directly over us and the smoke from the crater swirling down through our rigging.
We loafed away three pleasant weeks among the islands, loitering along the beautiful sea channels, merely killing time until Captain Shorey should arrive from San Francisco by steamer. Once we sailed within distant view of Molokai. It was as beautiful in its tropical verdure as any of the other islands of the group,but its very name was fraught with sinister and tragic suggestiveness;—it was the home of the lepers, the island of the Living Death.
We did not anchor at any time. None of the whaling fleet which meets here every spring ever anchors. The lure of the tropical shores is strong and there would be many desertions if the ships lay in port. We sailed close to shore in the day time, often entering Honolulu harbor, but at night we lay off and on, as the sailor term is—that is we tacked off shore and back again, rarely venturing closer than two or three miles, a distance the hardiest swimmer, bent upon desertion, would not be apt to attempt in those shark-haunted waters.
Many attempts to escape from vessels of the whaling fleet occur in the islands every year. We heard many yarns of these adventures. A week before we arrived, five sailors had overpowered the night watch aboard their ship and escaped to shore in a whale boat. They were captured in the hills back of Honolulu and returned to their vessel. This is usually the fate of runaways. Astanding reward of $25 a man is offered by whaling ships for the capture and return of deserters, consequently all the natives of the islands, especially the police, are constantly on the lookout for runaways from whaling crews.
When we drew near the islands the runaway fever became epidemic in the forecastle. Each sailor had his own little scheme for getting away. Big Taylor talked of knocking the officers of the night watch over the head with a belaying-pin and stealing ashore in a boat. Ole Oleson cut up his suit of oil-skins and sewed them into two air-tight bags with one of which under each arm, he proposed to float ashore. Bill White, an Englishman, got possession of a lot of canvas from the cabin and was clandestinely busy for days making it into a boat in which he fondly hoped to paddle ashore some fine night in the dark of the moon. "Slim," our Irish grenadier, stuffed half his belongings into his long sea-boots which he planned to press into service both as carry-alls and life-preservers. Peter Swenson, the forecastle's baby boy, plugged up some bigempty oil cans and made life buoys of them by fastening a number of them together.
Just at the time when the forecastle conspiracies were at their height we killed a thirteen-foot shark off Diamond Head. Our catch was one of a school of thirty or forty monsters that came swarming about the brig, gliding slowly like gray ghosts only a few feet below the surface, nosing close to the ship's side for garbage and turning slightly on their sides to look out of their evil eyes at the sailors peering down upon them over the rail. Long John, the boat-steerer, got out a harpoon, and standing on the bulwarks shot the iron up to the wooden haft into the back of one of the sharks, the spear-point of the weapon passing through the creature and sticking out on the under side. The stout manila hemp attached to the harpoon had been made fast to the fore bitt. It was well that this was so, for the shark plunged and fought with terrific fury, lashing the sea into white froth. But the harpoon had pierced a vital part and in a little while the great fish ceased its struggles and lay still, belly up on the surface.
It was hauled close alongside, and a boat having been lowered, a large patch of the shark's skin was cut off. Then the carcass was cut adrift. The skin was as rough as sandpaper. It was cut into small squares, which were used in scouring metal and for all the polishing purposes for which sandpaper serves ashore.
Life aboard the brig seemed less intolerable thereafter, and an essay at escape through waters infested by such great, silent, ravenous sea-wolves seemed a hazard less desirable than before. Taylor talked no more about slugging the night watch. Slim unpacked his sea-boots and put his effects back into his chest. Peter threw his plugged oil cans overboard. Bill White turned his canvas boat into curtains for his bunk, and Ole Oleson voiced in the lilting measure of Scandinavia his deep regret that he had cut up a valuable suit of oil-skins.
The captain of one of the whaling ships came one afternoon to visit our skipper and his small boat was left dragging in our wake as the brig skimmed along under short sail. It occurred to me, and at the same time to my two Kanakashipmates, that here was a fine opportunity to escape. It was coming on dusk, and if we could get into the boat and cut loose we might have a splendid chance to get away. The Kanakas and I climbed over the bow, intending to let ourselves into the sea and drift astern to the boat, but the breeze had freshened and the brig was traveling so fast we did not believe we could catch the boat; and if we failed to do so, we might confidently expect the sharks to finish us. We abandoned the plan after we had remained squatting on the stays over the bow for a half hour considering our chances and getting soaked to the skin from the dashing spray.
A pathetic incident grew out of the visit of the captain from the other ship. Tomas Mendez's brother, a boat-steerer, came aboard with the boat's crew. He was a young negro whom all the boat-steerers and officers knew. He came swinging lightly over our rail, laughing and happy over the prospect of seeing his brother.
"Hello, fellers," he called to the Portuguese officers and boat-steerers who welcomed him. "Where's my brudder?"
"Dead, my boy," said one of the boat-steerers gently.
"Dead?" echoed Mendez.
He staggered back. When he had heard the details of his brother's death, he burst into tears. All the time his skipper remained aboard, the poor fellow stood by the cooper's bench and sobbed.
While drifting at the mouth of Honolulu harbor one morning, Captain Winchester called for a boat's crew to row him ashore. All hands wanted to go. I was one of the lucky ones to be chosen. The morning was calm and beautiful, the water was smooth, and we pulled away with a will.
The city looked inviting at the foot of its green mountains, its quaint houses embowered in tropical foliage. On our starboard beam rose the fine, bold promontory of Diamond Head, and in between the headland and the city lay Waikiki, the fashionable bathing beach. We could see the bathers taking the surf in the bright morning sunlight, while beyond stretched a delectable wooded country, above the tops ofwhose trees peeped manors and villas of wealthy citizens.
We reached the long pier at last and tied up the boat. While the captain went into the city the sailors remained on the dock in charge of Long John, the boat-steerer. Three snaky-eyed Kanaka policemen in blue uniforms hung about, watching our every movement. We were not allowed to stir off the dock. There was a street corner within a stone's throw. A little red brick store stood upon it. A lazy Kanaka lounged against the building, smoking a cigarette. That corner fascinated me. If I only could dodge around it! How near it seemed, and yet how unattainable!
But if we sailormen could not get into town, we at least had the freedom of the long pier. This was several hundred feet long and piled thick with freight of all descriptions, which shut its harbor end from view. With a casual and indifferent air I sauntered out along the pier. In a moment I was hidden behind the merchandise from the unsuspecting Long John andthe policemen. I soon reached the harbor end. I saw that a sharp curve in the shore line brought the part of the pier on which I was standing close to land. It seemed easy to dive off the pier, swim past a big four-masted English ship unloading alongside, gain the land, and escape to the cane fields which swept up to the edge of the city.
I sat down behind some freight and began to take off my shoes. I had one off when a barefooted Kanaka suddenly stepped into view from behind a pile of bales and boxes. He was tip-toeing and peering about him furtively. I knew him for a spy instantly. Directly he saw me staring at him he looked as guilty as one taken in crime, and slunk away sheepishly. I knew he was on his way to inform on me and made up my mind not to get my clothes wet by any hopeless attempt to run away.
I put my shoe back on and strolled back toward the boat. I saw one of my shipmates—it was Richard, the deep-water German sailor—walking up the gang-plank of the English ship alongside the dock. I followed him. When wereached the deck, we saw a gang of sailors working about an open hatch.
"Hello, mates," said Richard. "We are merchant seamen and want to clear out from a blooming whaler. Stow us away, won't you?"
The sailors didn't seem to take kindly to the proposition. Perhaps they were afraid of getting into trouble. But they told us we might go down in the fore-peak of the ship and stow ourselves away. Richard and I climbed down three decks and found ourselves in the chain lockers deep in the ship's bow. It was pitch dark down there and we lay upon the ship's cable in the farthest corners. For three hours we huddled there in silence.
Just when we were beginning to congratulate ourselves that our escape would be successful, the hatch was pulled off suddenly and three Kanaka policemen with drawn clubs came leaping down upon us.
"Come out of this, you," they yelled, swearing at us and brandishing their billets. The jig was up; resistance would have got us only broken heads. We were led upon deck and escorted towardthe gangway for the pier. But I was for one more try before giving up. Suddenly I darted for the rail on the harbor side of the ship. We were in the waist and the bulwarks reached about to my breast. Before the Kanaka policemen had recovered from their surprise I had plunged head first over the rail and dived into the water twenty or thirty feet below. When I came to the surface I struck out for shore with all my might. It was only a short swim. I soon made the land and dragged myself, dripping brine, out upon a beach.
I glanced toward the pier. The policemen, with a crowd at their backs, were dashing for me along shore. I started for the cane fields, but in my wet and heavy clothes I stumbled along as if there was lead in my shoes. Perhaps I ran a quarter of a mile. My pursuers gained on me steadily. I was drawing near a cane field, in which I felt I should be able to lose myself; but before reaching it, my pursuers sprang upon me and bore me to the ground. Then, with a policeman on either side of me, I was marched back to the brig's boat.
The populace had turned out royally in my honor and I passed through a lane of brown humanity that bent round eyes upon me and chortled and spluttered Kanaka and seemed to get a huge amount of enjoyment out of my capture. As my captors paraded me onto the pier, who should be there waiting for me but Captain Shorey, our new skipper, just arrived from San Francisco by steamer. He stood with feet wide apart and arms folded on his breast and looked at me steadily with stern, cold eyes. In my wet clothes I cut a sorry figure. I felt ashamed of myself and realized that this introduction to my new captain was not all it should have been. Captain Winchester had nothing to say to Richard and me on the long pull back to the brig. Once aboard, he drew a pint of Jamaica rum from his pocket and gave every man of the boat's crew, except us, a swig. But no penalty of any sort was imposed upon us for our escapade. This surprised us.
GABRIEL'S LITTLE DRAMA
On a bright, sunshiny morning a few days later, with a light breeze just ruffling the harbor, the brig with her sails laid back and her head pointed seaward was drifting with the ebb tide perhaps a mile and a quarter off shore between Honolulu and Diamond Head. Captain Winchester had set out for the city in a whale boat. Those of the sailors left aboard were idling forward. Mr. Landers, the mate, sat by the skylight on the poop, reading a magazine. Second Mate Gabriel and the cooper were busy at the cooper's bench in the waist. No one else was on deck and I resolved to attempt again to escape. The situation seemed made to order.
In the warm weather of the tropics, I had often seen old man Landers, when there was nothing doing on deck, sit and read by the hourwithout ever looking up. I hoped that this morning his magazine would prove of absorbing interest. Gabriel and the cooper were intent upon their work. As for the sailors, I told them I was going to try to swim ashore and if I were discovered and they had to lower for me, I asked them to hurry as little as possible so I might have every chance to get away.
For my adventure I wore a blue flannel shirt, dungaree trousers, and my blue cap. I tied my shoes together with a rope yarn, which I slipped baldric-fashion over my shoulder. In the belt at my waist I carried a sailor's sheath knife. With this I had a foolish idea that I might defend myself against sharks. Without attracting attention, I slipped over the bow, climbed down by the bob-stays, and let myself into the sea. I let myself wash silently astern past the ship's side and struck out for shore, swimming on my side without splash or noise, and looking back to watch developments aboard.
I am convinced to this day that if I had not been in the water, old Landers would have kept his nose in that magazine for an hour or so anddrowsed and nodded over it as I had seen him do dozens of times before. Either my good angel, fearful of the sharks, or my evil genius, malignantly bent upon thwarting me, must have poked the old fellow in the ribs. At any rate, he rose from his chair and stepped to the taff-rail with a pair of binoculars in his hand. He placed the glasses to his eyes and squinted toward the pier to see whether or not the captain had reached shore. I don't know whether he saw the captain or not, but he saw me.
"Who's that overboard?" he shouted.
I did not answer. Then he recognized me.
"Hey, you," he cried, calling me by name, "come back here."
I kept on swimming.
"Lay aft here, a boat's crew," Mr. Landers sang out.
Gabriel and the cooper ran to the quarter-deck and stared at me. The sailors came lounging aft along the rail. Mr. Landers and Gabriel threw the boat's falls from the davit posts. The sailors strung out across the deck to lower the boat.
"Lower away," shouted Mr. Landers.
One end of the boat went down rapidly. The other end jerked and lurched and seemed to remain almost stationary. I wondered whether my shipmates were bungling purposely. Mr. Landers and Gabriel sprang among them, brushed them aside and lowered the boat themselves. A crew climbed down the brig's side into the boat. Old Gabriel went as boatheader. In a jiffy the sweeps were shot into place, the boat was shoved off, and the chase was on.
All this had taken time. As the ship was drifting one way and I was quartering off in an almost opposite direction, I must have been nearly a half mile from the vessel when Gabriel started to run me down.
I swam on my side with a long, strong stroke that fast swimmers used to fancy before the Australian crawl came into racing vogue. I was swimming as I never in my life swam before—swimming for liberty. All my hope and heart, as well as all my strength, lay in every stroke. The clear, warm salt water creamed about my head and sometimes over it. I was making time. Swimming on my side, I could see everythingthat was happening behind me. As the boat came after me I noticed there was but a slight ripple of white water about the prow. Plainly it was not making great speed.
"Pull away, my boys. We ketch dat feller," sang out Gabriel.
Wilson at the midship oar "caught a crab" and tumbled over backwards, his feet kicking in the air. Wilson was a good oarsman. He was my friend. A hundred yards more and Walker at the tub oar did the same. He also was my friend.
The boys were doing their best to help me—to give me a chance. I knew it. Gabriel knew it, too. The crafty old negro recognized the crisis. I could not hear what he said or see all that he did, but the boys told me about it afterwards. It must have been a pretty bit of acting.
Suddenly Gabriel half rose from his seat and peered anxiously ahead.
"My God!" he cried, "dat poor feller, he drown. Pull, my boys. Oh, good God!"
The sailors at the sweeps had their backs to me. It was a good long swim and the waterwas full of sharks. It was not difficult to make them believe that I was verging on tragedy.
"Dere he go down!" Gabriel's voice was broken and sobbing. "He t'row his hands up. He underneath de water. I cain't see him. Oh, dat poor feller! No, dere he come up again—oh, good Lord! Pull away, my bully boys, pull away. We save him yet."
Surely the stage lost a star when Gabriel became a whaler. The old Thespian was good—he was great. His acting carried conviction. The sailors believed I was drowning. They leaned upon their oars with a will. The sweeps bent beneath the powerful strokes. The boat jumped through the water. I noted the increased speed by the white spray that began to stand at the bow. Gabriel helped along the speed by forward lurches of his body, pushing at the same time upon the stroke oar. All the while he kept shouting:
"We save him yet, dat poor feller! Pull away, my boys."
The boat came up rapidly. In a little while it was almost upon me. I tried to dodge it bydarting off at right angles. It was no use—Gabriel slewed his tiller and the boat came swishing round upon me. I had played the game out to the last and I was beaten—that was all. I caught the gunwale near the bow and pulled myself into the boat.
"You make dam good swim, my boy," said old Gabriel, smiling at me as he brought the boat around and headed back for the ship.
I had made a good swim. I was fully a mile from the brig. I was not much over a half mile from shore. I looked across the sunlit, dancing blue water to the land. How easy it would have been to swim it! How easy it would have been after I had crawled out upon the sands to hide in the nearby mountains and live on wild fruit until the ship started for the north and all danger of capture was past.
No land could have seemed more beautiful. Groves of banana, orange, and cocoanut trees held out their fruit to me. Forests swept to the summits of the mountains. Flowers were in riotous bloom everywhere. I could almost count the ribs in the glossy fronds of the palms. I couldhear the soft crash of the combers on the coral beaches of those enchanted shores. It all looked like paradise and I had missed it by half a mile.
When I reached the brig, Mr. Landers permitted me to put on dry clothing and then put me in irons, as the sea phrase is. This consisted in fastening my hands together in front of me with a pair of steel handcuffs of the ordinary kind used by sheriffs and policemen everywhere. Then he made me sit on the main hatch until Captain Winchester came back from Honolulu, along toward sundown.
"What's the matter with that man?" roared the captain as he swung over the rail and his eyes lighted on me.
"He jumped overboard and tried to swim ashore," said Mr. Landers in his nasal Cape Cod drawl.
"Why didn't you get my rifle and shoot him?" thundered the captain.
"Well," returned Mr. Landers, "I don't shoot folks."
After supper the captain stuck his head out of the cabin gangway.
"Come down here, you," he said. I stepped into the cabin, now bright with lighted lamps. The captain glared at me savagely.
"You want to give me a bad name with Captain Shorey when he takes command, do you?" he shouted. "You want to make it appear I have been hard on my men, eh? You think you're a smart sea lawyer, but I'll teach you the bitterest lesson you ever learned. We are bound for the Arctic Ocean. There are no ships up there but whale ships, and we do as we please. I have been sailing to the Arctic for thirteen years as master and mate of whale ships and I know just how far I can go in dealing with a man without making myself liable to law. I am going to make it as rough for you as I know how to make it. I will put you over the jumps right. I will punish you to the limit. This ship is going to be a floating hell for you for the rest of the voyage. And when we get back to San Francisco you can prosecute me all you please."
He drew a key from his pocket and unlocked one manacle. It dropped from one wrist and dangled from the other.
"Boy," he said to the Kanaka cabin boy, who has been listening with open mouth and bulging eyes to this tirade, "get this man a cup of water and a biscuit."
I had had nothing to eat since breakfast, and I sat down at the cabin table and ate my one hardtack and drank my quart tin of water with a relish. After my meal, the captain fastened my handcuff again and jerked a little hatch out of the floor.
"Get down there," he said.
I climbed down and he clapped the hatch on again. I was in darkness except for the light that filtered from the cabin lamps through the four cracks of the hatch. When my eyes had become accustomed to the dimness, I made out that I was in the ship's run, where the provisions for the captain's table were stored. I rummaged about as well as I could in my handcuffs and found a sack of raisins open and a box of soda crackers. To these I helped myself generously. From a forecastle viewpoint they were rare dainties, and I filled my empty stomach with them. I had not tasted anything so good since I had my last piece of pie ashore. Pie! Dearme! One doesn't know how good it is—just common pie baked in a bakery and sold at the corner grocery—until one cannot get it and has had nothing but salt horse and cracker hash for months. I used to yearn for pie by day and dream of pie by night. At bedtime the captain snatched the hatch off again and tossed me down my blankets. I bundled up in them as best I could and slept with my manacles on.
I was kept in irons on bread and water for five days and nights. Sometimes in the daytime, with one handcuff unlocked and hanging from my other wrist, I was put at slushing down the main boom or washing paint-work. But for the most part I was held a close prisoner in the run, being called to the cabin table three times a day for my bread and water. Finally, when Captain Shorey came aboard and assumed command and the vessel headed for the north, I was released and sent to the forecastle. My shipmates proved Job's comforters and were filled with gloomy predictions regarding my future.
"I pity you from now on," each one said.
But their prophecies proved false. After Captain Shorey took charge of the ship Mr. Winchesterbecame mate. As mate he was, as may be said, the ship's foreman, directing the work of the men, and was in much more intimate contact with the sailors than when he had been skipper. In his new capacity he had much greater opportunity to make it unpleasant for me in a thousand ways. But for some reason or other he never made good that ferocious speech he had delivered to me in the cabin.
When other green hands bungled, he damned them in round terms for their awkwardness. When I blundered he showed me how to correct my error. "Not that way, my boy," he would say. "Do it this way." When I took my trick at the wheel he would often spin a yarn or crack a joke with me. He loaned me books from time to time. In Behring Sea, when he got out his rifle and shot okchug seals as they lay basking on cakes of ice, he almost invariably took me with him in the boat to bring back the kill. In short, he treated me more considerately than he treated any other man in the forecastle and before the voyage was over we had become fast friends.