CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VII."CUTTING IN."The necessary operations on the new ship's rigging had somewhat encroached upon the progress of other duties, connected with the whaling gear, during the few days since we left home. The cutting pendants were to be got over the masthead, not yet having been sent aloft; the falls were new and wiry; but few cutting-spades rigged or ground, and the best part of the afternoon was consumed in getting all things in readiness for cutting; and, as there was every prospect of fine weather, it was determined not to hook on until the next morning. Boat's crew-watches were set, as is common when lying under short sail, boatsteerers being in charge of the deck by turns, each with his own boat's crew, thus making three, or in large ships, four watches. This was a grand occasion for yarning in the first watch, as every one was up, looking at the leviathan alongside, swashing with every heave of the sea, and tugging at the stout fluke chain as the rise of the ship brought a strain upon it; as though still instinct with life and impatient of his bonds."Well, Jeff," said the ebony doctor, as he stood leaning over the rail after having finished his work for the night, "how much ile you tink dat whale make?""That whale," returned Jeff, measuring his dimensions with his eye, with a look of most profound sagacity, "that whale will stow down a hund'ed barrels, if we save him clean.""Save him clean? Save him fast enough," said the cook. "Fine weather.""Yes, 'tis now, but you don't know how long it will be so," said Old Jeff, who was in one of his "blue-lights" humors. "You don't know what the weather'll be to-morrow.""Guess it'll be good enough.""You've got no business to guess. Who shipped any such black ghost as you to guess about the weather?""Blackghost, eh! You know what the pot called the kettle, Jeff? Yah! yah! You aint more'n a half-price nigger, nohow. You wouldn't fetch more'n fifty dollars in Kentucky, if you be big. Sh' think you might be big, too; you eats 'bout six men's allowance. Look o' me, now; I don't eat nothin' hardly.""You've no business to eat anything. The cook's always 'lowed to live on the smell.""Smell, eh! 'spects dats de reason dey always ships black man for cook. Carry his own smell wid him eh? Not strong like Samson but like billy-goat. Now, you see, Jeff, you'm strong bofe ways.""Am I?" said Jeff, seizing the unfortunate doctor by the leg and the back of his neck, and holding him suspended over the whale in his Herculean grasp. "I've a good mind to give you an overboard bunkon this whale, just to show you the difference between a cook's berth and a boatsteerer's.""O Lord!" gasped the cook, when he was released, and once more found soundings with his feet on the deck, "you'm pretty strong one way, anyhow. Well, now, Jeff, how much did you ever see a whale make?""A hund'ed and eighty barrels.""What! a sparm whale?""Didn't say nothin' bout sparm whale. No, a right whale; the first voyage I went on Pattygoney.""O! I mean a sparm whale.""Well, I seen one make a hund'ed and fifteen barrels, that's the most. Now, here comes Cooper. Got his pipe loaded, too. I'll bet he's seen bigger one than that. Ask him now."The boys began to rally to a focus along the starboard-waist, as they saw the cooper coming forward."Cooper," said I, "where's your fiddle to-night? Are you going to fetch her up?""No, guess not to-night. Plenty of work for all of us to-morrow without shaking a leg over night.""Yes, plenty of work and no grog," growled Burley. "That's the worst of these temperance ships. They expect a man to work like a dog, and give him nothing to warm his heart. If men stood up for their rights, they'd have it. A man's entitled to two glasses a day, anyhow.""Not without he ships for it," said Jeff."Yes, I say he is," said the sea-lawyer."How's that?""Why, by the natural rights of man.""What the plague do you call the natural rights of man?" said the cooper, among whose crooked traits intemperance was not included. "I don't want to see grog served out in any ship where I am.""Well, I wish the ould man would jist ask me to take a dhrop wid him," said Farrell. "Of course, I'd refuse; but, then, 'twould be doin' the nate thing on his part.""I've seen so much of the bad effects of liquor," said the cooper, "that I don't want to be shipmates with it at all. It does a man no good in the long run. Sometimes, it's true, he can get steam up, and work faster for a short time, but he feels all the worse after the liquor dies in him. In such a case as cutting a whale in bad weather, where you want to gain time, it's convenient to have some; but I think it does more harm in the long run than will balance these temporary benefits. The trouble is, human nature is weak, and it isn't every shipmaster that can have charge of it without crooking his own elbow too often. Then again, all men can't stand it alike; and though some of us might bear two glasses well enough, others will get drunk and make difficulty on the same quantity, for, of course, you must serve all hands alike. We haven't all got systems like old Captain Harper, in the Deucalion. He could drink a deck-bucketful of New England rum, and stand up under it and back it round. I've seen him do it many a time.""Now, Cooper," said I, "go it now, you've got started.""Maybe you don't believe it, youngster," said thecooper, shaking his immense beard with the gravity of a sage. "But you have seen very little of the world yet. WhatI've seen, I know.""Sh' think he'd burn hisself all up," said the cook, extending his mouth in a grin, till the upper part of his head formed a peninsula."Had no more effect than pouring it into a leaky cask," continued the cooper, who had now mounted his hobby. "Perfect salamander! I always believed he was coppered inside. Why, I've seen that old man make many a meal off of red peppers, and wash them down with raw brandy.""Why not say aquafortis?" I suggested."No, I don't want to deviate from the truth," said the conscientious cooper. "I don't mean aquafortis, but I mean good Cognac brandy. Drink a potful of boiling tea right out of the cook's copper, just as natural as I'd take a drink of water from the scuttlebutt.""Dere, Cooper, dat'll do," said the astonished African. "He must been some relation to dat Sally Mander, or somebody else wuss'n her. I was going to ask you how much you ever see a sparm whale make? Jeff says he seen one make a hund'ed and fifteen barrels.""That isn't much," said the cooper, quietly. "When I was in the old Bajazet, we got a sperm whale in sight of French Rock, and it came on to blow, and we had an ugly job to cut him. We lost all his case; it got pretty old and mellow alongside, and 'shot' before we got hooked on it to. We got the junk in by cuttingit in two pieces, for the old man wouldn't risk the mainmast to lift the whole on it. Well, we saved a hundred and sixty-four barrels, and I suppose we lost about forty.""Tell that for anybody to believe it, Cooper?" asked Old Jeff. "I can't get up tackles enough to h'ist in the yard. It's heavier than that junk was.""Took the gauges of every cask myself," said the cooper."Must be you made a mistake in addin' on 'em up. How long was that whale, now, on a guess?""Well, I don't know; the Bajazet was a ship of three hundred and fifty tons, about the length of this one, I suppose; we brought the fluke-chain in at thehawse hole, and hauled it short up and down, and the mate had his cutting-stage over the stern to cut around the nib end; the head worked in under the counter sometimes and bothered him!""And did ye's have much throuble to kill that chap?" asked Farrell."None at all; laid like an island, you might have thrown a whole blacksmith's shop into him.""Do they often get whales as easily as we got this one to-day?" I inquired."Yes, a great many are taken as easy as that. But not always, as you'll find out by and by; for there's all kinds of manœuvres with whales, and hardly any two of 'em will act just alike.""Did you ever see any very bad ones taken?" I inquired."Well—no—not very bad," returned the cooper,evasively; for, much as he felt disposed to draw the long bow on this sonorous string, he was by no means regardless of the interest of the voyage, and well knew the bad policy of telling frightful yarns to green hands concerning fighting whales. It would be time enough for that when they had acquired some experience, and seen a few ugly whales themselves. He was not to be drawn out on this subject."Well, Cooper, how moosh you tink dis one he make?" inquired Manoel."About ninety barrels.""Well, how moosh my part?""What's your lay?""Hun'n forty.""Well, about two-thirds of a barrel.""I s'poseyouget 'bout two bar-r-r-eels. Diabo! you make too moosh mon-ee, Cooper.""Got half a dozen mouths to feed," returned the cooper. "But that's nothing to do with turning in; my pipe's out, and I guess I'll turn flukes, for the old man will have us all out at daylight, and there'll be no cats but what catch mice to-morrow."Following his example, the boys all dropped off to their bunks, till only the watch were left, and they were stretched round on the windlass, or wherever they could find quarters, for the deck was lumbered with casks, cutting-falls, hooks, toggils, and various gear necessary for securing the blubber from the whale.The weather continued fine through the night, and at the first peep of daylight Captain Upton was outand stirring. "Who's got the watch here? Call all hands out, and overboard hook! I want that head off before breakfast. Clap on there, the watch, and haul out this starboard guy a little more! Whose overboard is it?""Mine, Sir!" answered Bunker, who was equipping himself in an old short-sleeved shirt, a relic of "last voyage," and an old pair of woollen drawers, preparatory to jumping over on the whale to put in the blubber-hook, a part of the boatsteerer's duty far more desirable within the tropics than in higher latitudes, and especially to be eschewed on a cold, rugged morning in the Arctic regions."Over hook!" shouted Father Grafton, as soon as the crew began to muster along. "Bear a hand, boys, and stand by the windlass! Overhaul your fall well! Now then, Bunker, where are you? Now's your chance—smooth time! Here, Blacksmith, you belong to the hold gang. I shall put you in the waist gang, too. Stay here in the gangway, and lend a hand with the boatsteerers."The hook was soon in, and Mr. Grafton in his stage under the main chains with a long spade, the second mate in the forward stage with another. The old man had become ubiquitous, and was in twenty places at one and the same time."Here, Kelly, I shall appoint you captain of the scoop-net. Get a strap-tub along here ready to sling by the backstays, and get your net all ready. When they cut round the head, stand by to save all the slivers, and if you let a piece of fat go astern as big as a half-dollar, I shall stop it out of your lay. Hoistaway that fall! Heave the windlass some of ye, and get the slack in! Here, Collins, go aft there, and stay with the carpenter to turn grindstone. Keep your ears peeled for the word 'sharp spade!' from over the side, and don't make them sing out a dozen times or I shall be hunting you up myself. Boatsteerers! get the short spades all ready to use in the waist? That's right. Hook take well, Mr. Grafton? Here, pick up that monkey-rope, Fisher, and keep it out of the grease. Heave away that windlass? Where areyou, Jeff, with the song? Open your throat—Mr. Dunham, be careful and don't cut your blanketpiece too wide. Sharp spade into the after stage! Mr. Johnson, let me whet this boarding-knife for you. I used to be a good hand at it. Avast heaving, there! Keep your ears open, and mind the word!"All circumstances being favorable, the head was cut off before breakfast, and the body all in the blubber-room by nine o'clock, Captain Upton driving a spade into it with a perfect gusto, and slashing it into horse pieces almost as fast as it was stowed in the hatchway. The windlass went round "slip slop" to the lively strains chanted by Old Jeff, and chorused by all hands in various keys, making the clear air vocal with discord. I made considerable progress in the technicalities of "Board O!" and "In strap and toggle!" as well as in the equally important mystery of preserving myaplombon the greasy deck, having been on my beam ends only twice during the whole operation. To the startling hail from the old man, "What are you doing down on deck? That'smyplace!" I made no audiblereply but a laugh; but mentally responded, that if that were the old man's place, he was quite welcome to keep it.The heaviest work was to come in getting the junk inboard. It was roused forward into the waist, and after considerable "overhauling" and "rounding up," and some hard service for Bunker in getting a chain strap through the "junk," it was at last cut from the "case" and fairly hung in the tackles. All hands went to the windlass; the waist gang, the third and second mates found room with the rest; even Father Grafton lent a hand, and encouraged the others to lay out their strength on the bars. The captain again pervaded the whole deck, glancing anxiously aloft at his masthead pendants and tacklefalls to see how they bore the immense strain, and from time to time breaking forth in a sort of exhortation, half-command, half-entreaty, "Heave hard, men! Heave and raise him! Few squares more and we'll have him!"The good cordage of the falls groaned under the tension, as each ropeyarn seemed to yield a little to assist the rest, and the Arethusa heeled lower and lower at each additional "downpawls!" of the windlass, till her starboard plankshear was but little above the surface of the water. Slowly but steadily, by almost imperceptible degrees, the ponderous junk rose from its watery bed, its scarred black skin showing, in the ragged furrows and white streaks on its surface the marks of many a shock received in angry encounters with other sea monsters, and the mingled oil and water streaming at every pore and running in a gushfrom the hole where the chain-strap was cutting and jamming into the fat under the fearful strain. The mainmast-head itself could be seen to "give" sensibly to the weight, and the larboard main-shrouds to stiffen like bars of iron."Heave, boys! Square or two more!" said the captain, as the mighty mass began to cant inboard. "That's lively! Downpawls again! That watchtackle ready boatsteerers? High enough! Lay aft here, and get this tackle ready! There he swings lower! Lower away! Hook on and rouse him aft! What time is it? Slide him well aft, Mr. Grafton, out of the way! Steward! pass up my quadrant? We'll get dinner, Mr. Grafton, before we sling the case.""An' sure," said Farrell, as he came sliding and tumbling aft with the rest, to haul the tackle, "and is that his head, now?""Head? no!" growled Old Jeff, "that's only a small piece of it."The other "small piece" was hooked on immediately after dinner, and after another struggle at the windlass brakes was raised half out of water, and suspended in the tackles with the "root end" at the plankshear, for baling. A block and whip were rigged over it and we now cleared up the mystery of a certain long vessel of peculiar shape, which we had seen the cooper making a few days before, and which that worthy had solemnly assured us was asine qua nonin navigating the ship; the sun and moon being brought down with a sextant till their images could be seen in contact at the bottom of the bucket. Wewere lost in admiration as load after load of spermaceti was "whipped" out of the "case," and discharged into tubs placed ready to receive it, and found great amusement in being set to work to pull to pieces, by hand, the fibrous part of the head matter, and squeeze it out ready for the pots. We contrived ingeniously to get saturated with oil from head to foot, to the great enjoyment of Mr. Dunham, who protested we had already appropriated our lays of this whale, and vowed he would try out all our duds when the fare was over."Let's see, Cooper," said the fun-loving second mate, "you didn't save the case of that big whale I heard you telling about?""In the old Bajazet? No, sir; I wish we had.""How much do you suppose it would have made?""From thirty to forty barrels.""That's nothing," said Mr. Dunham. "We saw a Sydney whaler last voyage that baled sixty barrels from a case not as big as this one in the tackles.""How could he do that?" demanded the cooper, innocently."Hooked it nib end up, and cut chock through the root. Baled salt water a couple of hours before he found it out."The cooper turned away, and became suddenly industrious with his hammer and driver, to drown the roar of laughter that saluted him from all quarters.CHAPTER VIII.BOILING.—CUTTING THE LINE.—DUTCH COURAGE.—"MAN OVERBOARD."The "case" having been stripped of its oleaginous treasures, was cut adrift, and the Arethusa, with the yards again trimmed to the breeze, stood on her course to the southward. The "junk" was then cut up and thrown into casks, to save all the oil that was continually oozing from it, and the fires were started for boiling. "Try-watches" were set at night, by dividing the time into two equal portions, each watch taking the whole five or six hours on one stretch. The Portuguese Manoel and myself were appointed to work in the blubber-room, which is, perhaps, the best station in trying out, as the fortunate incumbent has but one department to attend to, and being under deck, is not exposed to the weather. Besides, he is much of the time "out of sight out of mind," and, by cutting fast for an hour or two, may gain upon his work so as to find time for "slants" of sleep or "catnaps," so termed, till roused again by the cry of "horsepieces!" at the hatchway. Now and then, Father Grafton, in going the rounds, would stoop over the hatchway, and peer in between decks, with a call to the sleepers:"Halloo, Blacksmith! Manoel, what are you doing away in there?""Leaning, sir!" would be the ready reply of the Portuguese; which was strictly true. He was "leaning" against a cask, sound asleep.A whaleship trying out at night presents one of the most weird and striking pictures that can well be imagined. But to enjoy it in full, the observer must take his station near the mainmast, looking forward, and this during his watch below, as his duties would otherwise subject him to certain interruptions which sadly mar the poetry of the thing. Alone, on the face of the waters, rides your floating home; the darkness around her intensified and rendered more opaque by the glare of light from the try-fires, and utterly impervious on the lee-beam and quarter from the thick clouds of smoke continually floating off in that direction. The brawny forms of the boatsteerers, thrown into strong relief in the centre group, as they tend the fires and the seething caldrons, which require their constant care and attention to ensure a fine quality of oil; the "mincer" on the left, industriously flourishing his broad, keen knife in the firelight; the cooper, fudging at a leaky cask, half hidden in darkness under the lee of the "cooler;" the deckhands flitting about at their various duties, appearing and vanishing in gloom, like spirits dancing in an ever-changing light, now livid, now lurid; now dying away till the smoke pall seems almost to envelop the whole picture, then suddenly bursting forth again with startling brightness, as the boatsteerer throws a freshgreasy scrap on the "back arches," and runs his long pike under the fires to stir up "Old Hallett;" the brilliant glare upon the rigging and sails of the foremast, seeming to reveal each lay of the cordage, each thread of the canvas, with a fidelity and minuteness of detail far exceeding that produced by daylight; all together form a scene to which no description can do justice, but of which every whaleman must acknowledge having felt the influence. The captain and the officers who are not on duty on the first watch seem to loiter round the mainmast, as though unwilling to lose the pleasure of the view even to seek necessary rest; and to enjoy their pipes with more than ordinary zest, as they call up reminiscences of large fares taken on former voyages, or count the tiers of sturdy ironbound casks already filled and lashed along the rail, and glancing between decks at the blubber yet uncut, make calculations and estimates of the probable yield of the whale. All is cheerfulness and hope at such times, and the prospects of the voyage seemed to partake of the brightness of the caboose fires. Wives and children are remembered with new affection at such moments; and each feels nearer to home and friends at each recurring sound of the light-driven bung, and the inspiring cry, "Away cask!" Truly is it remarked by old whalemen that the most delightful parts of a voyage are "boiling" and arriving home.The weather continued fine during the whole time occupied in boiling and stowing down, so that I may say I saw the first whale killed and taken care of undervery favorable circumstances, and treating lightly the croaking hints of the oldsters, thus formed an opinion of whaling in general which subsequent experience did not altogether confirm.Our good ship sped merrily on her voyage, and, after taking the trade winds, still more rapid progress was made. The equator was crossed without any of those time-honored ceremonies of initiation into old Neptune's realms which have formed the staple of so many yarns by old voyagers. Indeed, it is hardly to be supposed that the green hands would be subjected to much abuse or rough treatment from their equals in rank, where they themselves form the majority of the ship's company. Mr. Dunham, however, did not let the occasion pass without attempting a practical joke. Having the first watch on deck, he came forward, and calling a young greenhorn from Connecticut, who rejoiced in the ironical appellation of "Black Hawk," perhaps from his utter want of resemblance, in any one particular, to that illustrious chieftain:"Black Hawk," said he, confidentially, "I want you to get the cook's axe, and go out on the martingale, and stand by to cut the line. I expect we shall be up with it now in about half an hour, and you must look sharp and cut it quick, or it will bring the ship up all standing.""How big round is it?" asked the apparently innocent Black Hawk."About as thick as your arm; but if you get a good lick at it, you'll cut it in time, or at least cut some ofthe strands, so the ship will break it without stopping her.""Do ships always have to cut the line when they pass along here, sir?" inquired the youngster, who was not half so green as his appearance indicated."Yes, certainly they do.""And how does it get j'ined together again?""Why, old Neptune and his crew pick up the ends and splice it, after the ship has passed by," said Mr. Dunham, who was rather puzzled by this catechism, and did not quite understand the drift of it."And how long does it take 'em to get it j'ined again?""Well—I suppose it would take two or three hours to get the strands all tucked, and put it in good order.""Well, sir, when I came down from aloft (you know I had the sundown masthead, sir), there was a ship in sight ahead, and I guess she must have cut it about an hour ago; so they haint got through j'inin' on it yet. I guess we can slip through, sir, while the bars are down." And the baffled second mate went aft with a flea in his ear.Black Hawk, with all his apparent verdancy, was probably his superior in general knowledge; and though he had seen the black equator on the maps, had a pretty clear idea of the meaning of the words "imaginary line."We had light and baffling weather after crossing the line, and made but little progress for some days. We fell in company with several merchant vessels, allbound to the southward; but as they were always making the best of their way to a port of destination, they held no intercourse with us, beyond showing their national flags, and, if near enough for it to be seen, their longitude, chalked upon a blackboard, we responding in each case by showing ours. In one instance, however, we communicated with a stranger, which led to incidents both serious and ludicrous, to break the monotony of our sea life. A bark had been in sight of us all day, steering on the same course as ourselves. She had shown Dutch colors, but the wind being very light in the afternoon, the old man ordered his boat lowered, and pulled alongside of her. He was absent about a couple of hours, and returned with some Dutch cheese and other small matters. I noticed that some of the boat's crew appeared unusually jolly and demonstrative when they came alongside; but the boat was hoisted and they went forward, no attention being paid to them. It was surmised, of course, that they had been treated to a glass while on board the Dutchman. I asked Farrell, who was as happy as a lord, what the bark's name was."Divil a name of her I can tell ye," said Farrell; "but she belongs to some dam place or other; there's a dam about it, anyhow, 'pon my soul. I think it's Rotterdam. But they've got the good stuff there that'll warm your heart and loosen your tongue. Come here till I show ye." And dodging behind the galley, he produced from the capacious folds of his shirt a bottle of schnapps!"Dhrink," said Farrell. "Dhrink a health to the rotten-dam Dutchman.""But how did you manage to smuggle this on board, Farrell?""Ah, lave Corny Farrell alone for that! Don't say a word; Burley has the twin to it."I was fearful we should have some trouble before the two bottles were disposed of. However, I had no idea of turning informer, but even took a small drink from Farrell's bottle, thinking there would be the less for some one else, and the more it was subdivided, the less effect it would have on any one man.The bottles were passed round the forecastle, and there was enough to make all hands a little lively and talkative, but not enough to produce any ill effect, except in the case of the two proprietors of the bottles themselves, who had taken the lion's share at starting, and had preserved the remnants for private consumption. Old Jeff said to me, during our watch on deck, on coming out of the forecastle where he had been to light his pipe:"Blacksmith, there'll be fun, I think, when the starboard watch is called. Farrell is pretty noisy and happy; he wont make any trouble unless it's by some wild freak; but Burley is as tight as a brick, and it's his turnout wheel. He's blowing about his rights, and swears he wont go to the wheel, nor he wont stand a watch; so I think there'll be fun, for Mr. Dunham wont stand much nonsense with him.""Well, I guess his blowing wont amount to much," said I. "He'll cool down as soon as the second mate comes.""Think so?" said Jeff anxiously."Yes," spoke up Obed B. "There'll be no great trouble withhim.""I hear that you and Kelly wound him up and set him back. Was that so Hoeg? I didn't see that fun, for I was at the masthead. I only heard of it afterwards.""Well, he hasn't tried to bully either of us since," said Hoeg. "It's my opinion he's a great coward."Six bells struck, and the watch was called. Mr. Dunham came on deck, and, as usual, looked to see if the wheel was relieved. Finding it was not, he came forward."Antone, do you know whose wheel it is?" he asked."Burley's, sir.""Why isn't he there?""He say he no goin' to stand watch to-night, sir.""Why not? is he sick?""I don't know 'f he call sick. I calldrunk, sir.""O that's it? Well, we'll see about that."The second mate put his head over the scuttle, and listened a moment. Burley was laying down law and logic at a terrible rate, in spite of the remonstrances of his watchmates, who entreated him either to go on deck or else turn in, and let others have rest and quiet."I know my rights, and I'm the man to stand up for 'em!" said Burley. "I'm not going to stand a watch to-night, and I'd just like to see the live man that would make me go on deck!""Here he is then!" said Mr. Dunham, as, clearing the ladder with a swing of his body, he landed on his feet by the side of the astonished sea-lawyer."On deck, sir, at once, before I put you there!"Burley turned his head and caught the second mate's eye. HisDutchcourage failed him altogether. He found the upper deck so quick that the officer would not have found it easy to overtake him, had he been disposed to assault him; though he evidently did not consider him worth wasting wrath upon."What did I tell you?" said Obed B., quietly."Now," said Mr. Dunham, "you keep above deck the next four hours, and don't put your head below the scuttle. I don't want you at the wheel now; you are not fit to be there. Antone, go to the wheel. I'll see that he stands your next trick and his own too.""Arrah, Misther Burley! and where's your rights that you've been blowin' about?" said Farrell. "You've only been making Billy Fitzgibbons's mother of yerself, and yer perfarmances don't come up to yer promises, at all."I fell asleep with Farrell rattling away at him over my head; but I was sure the contemptible scamp was nearly powerless now as to any influence over the youngsters; for we had all set him down as a very Bob Acres, whose courage would ooze out at his fingers' ends, when brought to the scratch.I had just got into a sound sleep, when we were all brought out of our bunks on the jump by the thrilling cry—I almost think I hear it now—"Man overboard!"All was dark; the light in the forecastle had gone out; but, guided by the little patch of sky showing down the scuttle, I was on deck in an instant, with mytrousers in my hand. Here, all was confusion; the ship was coming up to the wind with everything slatting; the watch were clearing away the starboard boat, Fisher having already cut the gripes, and I was in her before she was half way down the side. I remember asking "Who is it?" and some one, I did not know who, said, "Farrell." I remember thinking that I had heard Farrell say he could swim a little. We shoved clear of the ship, and got our oars out; she had taken aback, and was going round, but we pulled out as near as possible in her old wake—nothing was to be seen! With anxious eyes and heavy hearts we looked about us. Here is something floating; we lay round for it; it is the life-preserver which has been cut adrift from the taffrail; but where is the man?? We pull still further out in the wake of the ship, and heave up again; something ripples here abeam of us. "Lay round quick!"We pass the spot. I think I can see a white pool or ring on the surface, and I involuntarily thrust my arm deep down; it touches something—the hair of my shipmate, sinking for the last time."Help here!" And Fisher and Black Hawk are at my side. They seize his shoulders and he is roused into the boat, and laid, face down, across the thwarts."Give way for the ship!" And we are quickly alongside, for she is now lying with the head yards aback, and lights set to tell us her whereabouts.All has passed so quickly that I seem to have dreamed it all, and to have woke now for the first time. He soon shows signs of life, under the activetreatment he is receiving, and he has revived sufficiently to sit up and look about him before the question is asked, by the old man:"How did he fall overboard?"No one seems to know. Black Hawk answers that he heard the splash in the water, and a cry immediately after, and running to the side, saw a head bob up abreast the fore-chains, and gave the alarm.By this time, Farrell enlightens us himself, by pointing forward with his arm, gasping out the single word "Parrp'ses," then is taken with retching again, brings up another pint of sea-water, and can give no further information at present.I ran forward. The porpoise line (which was kept ready rove in tail-block on the bowsprit) was towering under the bow. I seized and rounded it in, and brought up the "iron," or rather the pole and socket thereof, the shank being broken off close up. It would seem that Farrell, having the lookout, and all the rest being comfortably snoozing, had discovered porpoises playing under the bow, and being in the humor for a lark, determined to strike one "on his own hook," without calling for reinforcements until after he was "fast." But neither his head nor his heels being very trustworthy at the time, he darted the iron in one direction from the martingale guy, and himself in another. The porpoise must have been struck most effectually, and while we were busily engaged in saving the man, he had writhed in his agony under the bows, till he had wrung the shank of the iron off."Well, Farrell, my boy," said Mr. Grafton, "how do you feel after your Baptism?""Well, sir, I feel pretty well bothered, but I'll warrant the parr'pus is nearer dead than I am.""Yes, you struck him solid, at any rate," said the mate."An' sure, sir," returned Farrell, "don't you always stern all, sir, as soon as you're fast?""Yes, that's according to rule; but circumstances may alter cases. It was a narrow squeak for you, at any rate. You'll be in no hurry to catch porpoises again in a dark night, alone.""Bad luck to the soaking I got?" said Farrell, as he went forward. "It's taken all the snap out o' me—and the schnapps too."Manifold were the jokes cracked at the young Irishman's expense, after this adventure; for with seamen, as with soldiers, a miss is as good as a mile, always, and that which is almost a tragedy becomes the very ideal of a farce.But the redoubtable Burley was effectually stripped of his teeth and claws. He was as harmless as an old blunderbuss, which after having been apparently well loaded, primed andschnapped, has flashed in the pan. The captain said nothing to indicate that he knew any thing of the liquor having been brought on board. He was not a man to say much to his crew, except in the way of necessary duty; and he probably resolved to be silent and more watchful in the future. But I overheard him telling the mate, the next night, as I stood at the wheel, that Farrell seemed a smart youngfellow, and he thought he would make a slashing boatsteerer, if one should be wanted, "especially," he added, dryly, "if we could always speak a Dutchman just before we lowered."CHAPTER IX."GAMMING" WITH A "HOMEWARD-BOUNDER."When in the latitude of Cape St. Augustine, being close-hauled, with light breezes at east-south-east a ship was "raised" in the afternoon, under a cloud of light canvas, steering to the northward. As she gradually neared us, she was made out by her boats and other significant marks to be a homeward-bound whaler, and by altering her course a little, showed her intention of passing within hail and speaking us. The order was given to haul the mainsail up and square the mainyard, and the good ship, arrested in her course, seemed to sit in state, like a hostess, to receive company. The decks were cleared up, and work knocked off at an earlier hour than usual; and the slowly approaching stranger now became the centre of attraction, and the subject of much argument and speculation, each of the old hands recognizing her as some ship he knew or had sailed in, so that in half an hour, she had been christened by more names than would have fitted half the Nantucket fleet, which at that period was no inconsiderable number. Old Jeff knew it was the Colossus by something peculiar about her spritsail-yard; a very reasonable supposition, inasmuch as the Colossuswas only four months from Nantucket, outward bound, while the copper, or rather the want of it, on the stranger's bottom, showed unmistakable signs of at least three years' wear and tear. The cooper was morally certain it was the Deucalion, for no other ship ever had, or possibly could have, a pair of anchor-stocks of that shape; but when reminded that she was only one year out, and her voyage probably not completed, compromised the matter by the hypothesis that the ship in sight must have spoken the Deucalion, and bought her anchor; a case which was voted to be far more possible than probable. The old man and his mates were thinking of all the ships that ought to be homeward-bound at that time, and calling her first one and then another; but the conclusion arrived at was that she must be some "outlandishman," as the islanders then termed the New London and Sag Harbor whalers, who defiled their ships with "right whale glue," rather than cruise four years exclusively for sperm.The meeting of two ships at sea is a beautiful and imposing affair. I was deeply interested in the sight, as the stranger drew nearer and nearer. He had hauled in his studdingsails, and brailed up both courses, seeming at times to slide down to leeward on a declivity, and then to stop suddenly, as if arrested by some unseen power. The breeze was light, and the sea comparatively smooth, but I was surprised to see how considerable her rolling motion was, even under these circumstances. Rough-looking men, clad in garments of more colors than the coat of Joseph ever boasted, couldbe seen clustered round the bows, and stretching their heads over the bulwarks, and two or three had climbed into the waist-boat, to get a better view. The skipper, a large, dark-looking man, sat in the head of the labored quarter-boat, from time to time turning his head to speak to his helmsman, and waving his brass trumpet to enforce the order. Captain Upton, with a similar instrument, was mounted on the taffrail, his mates standing near him, a little in the background. The stillness, as the ships neared each other, was unbroken now, save by the occasional rustle of a sail aloft, or the slight washing of the water under the bows of the stranger. Some one was seen to run forward with a spyglass, and, after bringing it to bear for a moment upon our stern, to hurry aft again with a report to the strange captain. The ship appeared at this moment to be heading directly into us, as though bent on striking us amidships and running us down. Some of us, clustered at the weather rail, involuntarily began to draw back, fearing a collision; but again, at a wave of the dark man's trumpet the ship, obedient to her helm, fell slowly off, so as to pass just clear, across our stern. Silence more profound than ever."Who commands the Arethusa?" shouted a hoarse voice, through the brass tube."Upton!" responded the other brass tube."Hope you're very well, Captain Upton!" said brass tube number one, obscuring the face of the speaker like a total eclipse."Very well, thank you," answered tube number two in the same style. "What ship is that, pray?""Mandarin, of Nantucket.""Hope to see you well, Captain Barney."Much muttering now ensued among our wiseacres, each of whom had known it was the Mandarin all along, and had told all the rest so, half an hour ago. Anybody might have known that was the Mandarin's figure-head. All which somewhat interfered with the clear understanding of the rest of the dialogue, which was now carried on between the brass tubes at a furious rate. "What success?—Sixteen hundred.—What port are you from last?—Oahu.—How long are you from home?—Forty-five days.—Got any letters for us?—Yes. Come aboard.—Thank you, I will." A flourish of the trumpet, and the Mandarin's crew are seen running to the braces, as her helm is clapped a starboard, and she rounds to the wind at a handsome distance under our lee, with her maintopsail thrown aback for an old-fashioned "gam."Supper is delayed for the guests to arrive; several of us dive below, embracing the opportunity to write a few lines to our friends at home; Old Jeff growls at us for being in such a hurry, and says there's plenty of time between now and midnight; for we are sure to "gam" till that time."Captain Barney and the old man are cronies, and they'll have to kill all the whales in the ocean across the cabin table, before they part company."A light whaleboat is presently seen to drop from under the Mandarin's lee-quarter, and comes bounding to windward under the powerful impulse of her oars, the sturdy and regular strokes telling of old and trainedhands who wield them. A petty officer is steering, while his majesty the captain stands firmly planted in the stern sheets, with his legs spread apart in an attitude suggestive of an inverted letter Y, and benignly regards his loyal subjects at the oars, who stretch to their work in gallant style, as if conscious that they "bear Cæsar and his fortunes." The principal impelling motive, however, is their eagerness to levy contributions upon the "greenies." Already they imagine themselves returning with bundles of books and papers tied up with rope-yarns, and shirt-bosoms corpulent with new tobacco, a luxury to which their teeth have been strangers for many a day."Ship in, harp'neer! way enough! Look out for the warp in the waist!""Halloo, old man!" says Captain Barney, as he recognizes Father Grafton at the man-ropes, "you out here again?"Then as his head rises above the rail, "How goes it, Upton? S'pose you've got a crack ship here by the look of things. Well, how did you leave old Nantucket? 'Taint sunk yet, has it?" A common question with whalemen when they meet, and asked with as much gravity as that of the noble Thane, Macduff, "Stands Scotland where it did?" or as though islands were in the habit of submerging themselves every day in the week.A hearty greeting and hand-shaking follows, with a few hurried questions and replies, an introduction to the other officers, and an invitation to our mate to go on board and spend the evening with Mr. Joy."Do you swap boats' crews, Upton?""Yes, I don't care; let them go."So the boat is manned with a crew of Arethusas, myself among the number, and Mr. Grafton steers himself, not yet having arrived at the dignity of a body guard. It was nearly dark when we arrived alongside, and as soon as the boat was on the cranes and secured, all hands made a "grand forward movement" to supper, and I now had leisure to look about me, and to compare the vessel and her veteran looking crew with the Arethusa and my own shipmates.The forecastle of the Mandarin was small, dingy and dark, even in the daytime, having only two small decklights and no sidelights, a modern luxury which had not then come into general use. She had boasted a steerage in the early part of the voyage, but this had been broken up, and all hands quartered in the forecastle—sixteen men in twelve bunks, some of them turning in and out, watch and watch. An old battered blubber-room lamp hung from a beam overhead, and gave just sufficient light to make darkness visible. Two little ones, of the kind known as "petticoat lamps," were now added, and each furnished light enough to see that the other was burning. The old adage that "a farrier's mare and a cobbler's wife are always slipshod" is fully verified in the case of a whaleman's lamp; for those who supply the world with oil burn it in its crude state.There was room enough in the forecastle, small as it was; for not half the crew had chests, and their goods and chattels could be compressed into a verysmall compass. The supper was not exactly what would have tempted a gourmand; still it was all that could be expected on board a ship forty-four months from home. The cows must have gone astray, for the supply of milk had failed:domesticcoffee, compounded of burnt peas and corn, had usurped the place of the imported article; while it was evident that the visitors, if in time for supper, had come too late fortea. The bread was thickly colonized, and the salt junk better adapted for the manufacture of fancy carved work and articles ofvirtuthan for purposes of mastication. It was, of course, a point of honor with us green hands to overlook these little drawbacks, and even to affect an eccentric taste for the ancient viands; but our hosts were not at all backward in expressing their dissatisfaction with this state of things.This crew were mostly "beach-combers," men who had joined the ship during the voyage, many of them in the last port, and knew little and cared less about the history of the voyage previous to the time they shipped. They were full of tales of their adventures in other vessels from which they had deserted or been discharged, and of encounters with consuls, captains of the port,vigilantes, and other functionaries, commonly regarded as Jack's natural enemies; while those luckless shipmasters who had availed themselves of their services must have lived in perpetual jeopardy during the time they remained on board.I inquired of the man upon whom I was quartered at supper, "how long the ship was out.""That's more than I can tell you," returned thecruiser. "I've been only four months in this hooker. There's Dan and 'Shorty,' they are the only two men in the fo'c'stle that came from home in her. They can tell you; all the rest of us are cruisers.""Where did you join her?" I asked."In Oahu. I ran away from the Cambridge, of New Bedford, and stowed away here in the fore peak. The 'kikos' came aboard three times, hunting for runaway men; but I'll defy any kiko to catchme.""What's a kiko?" I inquired."That's what they call the Kanaka policemen. They used to come down and take off the fore peak scuttle, and look down, and shove their sticks in; but you see they don't have but one pair of white trousers apiece, and don't mean to get 'em dirty. But if any kiko had crawled in where I was, he wouldn't have got out again alive.""Why not?" I inquired, innocently."'Cause I'd have let daylight through him!"I looked at the speaker reflectively, and involuntarily hitched a little further from him on the chest, feeling somewhat doubtful of close companionship with so dangerous a character. Yet the probability is, this man was as arrant a Falstaff as could be found in a day's journey."What made you run away from the Cambridge?""O, me and the old man had a row. Besides, I had been eight months in her, and that's long enough to be in one craft. I'd like to see the——hooker that would keepmea year."The speaker prefixed to the word hooker a sanguinary adjective, which is not applicable to ships except after a hard-fought action."Do you expect to stay out the voyage in that hooker?" inquired the beach-comber."Yes," said I, "I think I shall. I've been well used so far, and have nothing to complain of. I don't see any reason to leave the ship, with the chance of getting into a worse one.""Ah, my lad, you're green yet. Wait awhile till you've seen more service, and you'll get tired of staying so long in one craft. I say, shift about and go by the cruise. Six months is plenty long enough in one hooker."Some of the green hands were swallowing this kind of poison by wholesale; each one listening to a yarn of how the narrator had humbugged a shipping master, or bullied an American "counsle," or knocked over an officer of a ship in the discharge of his duty. The pleasures of a drunken spree and row with the police of a foreign port were duly set forth, and the peculiar delights of life in a calaboose depicted in glowing colors. But this species of conversation flagged after a time. The Mandarins boasted no musical instrument; but that curse and abomination of the forecastle, a greasy pack of cards, was produced, and furnished pastime for a small knot in one corner for a short time.Dan and "Shorty," the two "voyagers," brought up from the depths of their chests some canes, busks, and other fancy articles or "scrimshonting," as it istermed by whalers, ingeniously fabricated from whales' teeth and jaw bones, some of which they were willing to exchange for tobacco, the principal necessary of life among seamen on long voyages, and their universal circulating medium and standard of value. An article of traffic at sea, instead of being estimated at so many dollars and cents, is rated at so many pounds of tobacco; a thing which is nearly worthless is "not worth a chaw of tobacco;" a disputed question is generally settled by betting a certain quantity of tobacco, and a notorious romancer is often interrupted in the midst of a thrilling story, with the inquiry, "How much tobacco have you got?" meaning, "How much can you give us to believe it? We'll believe anything, if you've got tobacco enough to put it through."And yet, through all the rough entertainment there shone a vein of politeness and deference to their guests, a certain delicacy which never deserts the sailor, and which might be studied with profit by many accustomed to the most courtly circles. A man who should overstep certain bounds in his intercourse with visitors from a strange ship, or be guilty of the slightest breach of a certain etiquette, not defined by Chesterfield's laws, but natural and of spontaneous growth, as it were, would be taken to task unmercifully by his shipmates; and slights which would pass current in a fashionable evening party, with both nobs and snobs, would never be overlooked in a whalemen's "gam."A song was called for by somebody; the motionwas seconded and carried,nem. con.; cards were thrown aside, "scrimshonting" articles returned to their depositories; and after some little clamor, it was decided that "Old Scotty," a tall, sunburned salt, who had served, according to his own statement, in one of the maintops of his most nautical majesty William the Fourth, should open the musical programme with that delectable chorus, "The stormy winds how they blow, blow, blow," which he executed after the most approved and orthodox style, rolling up the whites of his eyes at the carlines overhead, as though he expected that the roaring chorus in which all lands joined, would lift the deck off, and afford him a view of the heavens. A burst of applause followed the last verse, which I must confess I construed to be a manifestation of joy that it was finished, and of gratitude that there was no more of it to be endured. The Arethusas were now called upon to respond, and after some comparing of notes and prompting each other, Farrell struck up the time-honored confession of the misguided Irish youth who committed matrimony at the tender age of sixteen, and "died forlorn on Steven's Green," and afterwards wrote his autobiography in common metre, his last earthly request being that his pall might be borne by six disconsolate young ladies, all dressed in white gowns and pink ribbons. This song is a stock article with Irish and seamen, for what reason it would be hard to tell. A stout, jolly-looking Mandarin next electrified the auditors with the sentimental refrain of "O no, we never mention her!" with original quaversand variations, chanted in a voice of thunder; and was followed by Old Scotty, who rolled his eyes higher than ever as he poured himself out in a heartrending ballad, describing the fate of a certain Miss Caroline of Edinboro town, who at an untimely age "shuffled off this mortal coil," and "plunged her body down," after giving preciselythreeshrieks for Henry, neither more nor less. This pathetic outbreak again brought up the Arethusas in force, and the entertainment was sustained with great vigor on both sides, the songs being of various descriptions, and some, like newspaper novelettes, broken off in the middle of a verse, "to be continued hereafter." Some of the volunteer performers would have passed for good singers where tunes were not in fashion, while others, if they had fitted all the snatches together into one, might have furnished a medley of a highly original character. The veritable history of that unfortunate mariner, William Taylor, who was sent to his last account by the contents of a brace of pistols in the hands of his slighted "ladie love," having been caughtin flagrante delicto, basking in the smiles of another fair one, was interrupted at a most thrilling crisis by the cry of "Brace forward the mainyard!" for the Arethusa had forged considerably ahead, while both ships were lying aback. It took some time to do this, as by a singular fatality, nobody had a watch on deck; all the men who should by any possibility have had one had gone gamming. Thedenouementof the fickle Taylor's story was lost, as the helm required the singer's services.The last act of the evening partook much of thenature of the first, being filled with marvellous tales of exploits, and "moving accidents by flood," and comparison of notes touching the respective merits of ships, captains and officers. The cry of "Haul aback" cut short several half-finished stories, and brought everybody on deck to look at the Arethusa, now running to leeward with a light set as a signal of recall for her mate and boat's crew. A murmur of admiration went round among us, at the appearance of the crack ship looming in the clear moonlight, as, having assumed the lee position, she rounded gracefully to again, when the boat was cleared away and manned, with hearty farewells on both sides."Good-night, Joy," said Father Grafton, as he descended the man-ropes. "Short passage home to you. Deliver my letter yourself when you get there.""Ay, ay," returned the Mandarin's mate. "Greasy luck to you!""Thank you," said Grafton. "A large whale for you to-morrow," with the additional reservation, "and two forus. Let go the warp! out oars—pull ahead!"We arrived on board our own ship to find a scene similar to that we had just left. Some of the Mandarins had found a congenial spirit in the sea-lawyer Burley, and others had fulfilled their mission by "bumming" considerable quantities of tobacco and literature from the younger lads. Manoel and Antone had monopolized a Portuguese boatsteerer, and formed a trio aside for a conference highly interesting to themselves and possessing the additional merit of being unintelligible to all the rest.The Mandarin having run to leeward in her turn, the word was passed to "man the boat;" and, for a wonder, they waited alongside only three quarters of an hour. But Captain Barney was an uncommonly prompt man in his movements; the usual standard in such cases being one hour and a quarter.In a few minutes, the rusty-looking ship was off on her northerly course for "home, sweet home," bearing messages to gladden the hearts of many interested in the fate of those on board her late consort, who was again standing by the wind to the southward.The first inoculation of what may be designated "salt poison" had taken effect among our crew, and much mischief had been done by this apparently harmless visit. Those who had hitherto been cheerful and satisfied with all around them, now began to discover flaws and defects, viewing things and actions through new and distorted lenses; instituting parallels between the methods of doing the most trifling duties on board different vessels, and discoursing nautical wisdom at second hand with all the gravity and dogmatism of experienced tars. Truly may it be said in connection that "comparisons are odious."

CHAPTER VII."CUTTING IN."The necessary operations on the new ship's rigging had somewhat encroached upon the progress of other duties, connected with the whaling gear, during the few days since we left home. The cutting pendants were to be got over the masthead, not yet having been sent aloft; the falls were new and wiry; but few cutting-spades rigged or ground, and the best part of the afternoon was consumed in getting all things in readiness for cutting; and, as there was every prospect of fine weather, it was determined not to hook on until the next morning. Boat's crew-watches were set, as is common when lying under short sail, boatsteerers being in charge of the deck by turns, each with his own boat's crew, thus making three, or in large ships, four watches. This was a grand occasion for yarning in the first watch, as every one was up, looking at the leviathan alongside, swashing with every heave of the sea, and tugging at the stout fluke chain as the rise of the ship brought a strain upon it; as though still instinct with life and impatient of his bonds."Well, Jeff," said the ebony doctor, as he stood leaning over the rail after having finished his work for the night, "how much ile you tink dat whale make?""That whale," returned Jeff, measuring his dimensions with his eye, with a look of most profound sagacity, "that whale will stow down a hund'ed barrels, if we save him clean.""Save him clean? Save him fast enough," said the cook. "Fine weather.""Yes, 'tis now, but you don't know how long it will be so," said Old Jeff, who was in one of his "blue-lights" humors. "You don't know what the weather'll be to-morrow.""Guess it'll be good enough.""You've got no business to guess. Who shipped any such black ghost as you to guess about the weather?""Blackghost, eh! You know what the pot called the kettle, Jeff? Yah! yah! You aint more'n a half-price nigger, nohow. You wouldn't fetch more'n fifty dollars in Kentucky, if you be big. Sh' think you might be big, too; you eats 'bout six men's allowance. Look o' me, now; I don't eat nothin' hardly.""You've no business to eat anything. The cook's always 'lowed to live on the smell.""Smell, eh! 'spects dats de reason dey always ships black man for cook. Carry his own smell wid him eh? Not strong like Samson but like billy-goat. Now, you see, Jeff, you'm strong bofe ways.""Am I?" said Jeff, seizing the unfortunate doctor by the leg and the back of his neck, and holding him suspended over the whale in his Herculean grasp. "I've a good mind to give you an overboard bunkon this whale, just to show you the difference between a cook's berth and a boatsteerer's.""O Lord!" gasped the cook, when he was released, and once more found soundings with his feet on the deck, "you'm pretty strong one way, anyhow. Well, now, Jeff, how much did you ever see a whale make?""A hund'ed and eighty barrels.""What! a sparm whale?""Didn't say nothin' bout sparm whale. No, a right whale; the first voyage I went on Pattygoney.""O! I mean a sparm whale.""Well, I seen one make a hund'ed and fifteen barrels, that's the most. Now, here comes Cooper. Got his pipe loaded, too. I'll bet he's seen bigger one than that. Ask him now."The boys began to rally to a focus along the starboard-waist, as they saw the cooper coming forward."Cooper," said I, "where's your fiddle to-night? Are you going to fetch her up?""No, guess not to-night. Plenty of work for all of us to-morrow without shaking a leg over night.""Yes, plenty of work and no grog," growled Burley. "That's the worst of these temperance ships. They expect a man to work like a dog, and give him nothing to warm his heart. If men stood up for their rights, they'd have it. A man's entitled to two glasses a day, anyhow.""Not without he ships for it," said Jeff."Yes, I say he is," said the sea-lawyer."How's that?""Why, by the natural rights of man.""What the plague do you call the natural rights of man?" said the cooper, among whose crooked traits intemperance was not included. "I don't want to see grog served out in any ship where I am.""Well, I wish the ould man would jist ask me to take a dhrop wid him," said Farrell. "Of course, I'd refuse; but, then, 'twould be doin' the nate thing on his part.""I've seen so much of the bad effects of liquor," said the cooper, "that I don't want to be shipmates with it at all. It does a man no good in the long run. Sometimes, it's true, he can get steam up, and work faster for a short time, but he feels all the worse after the liquor dies in him. In such a case as cutting a whale in bad weather, where you want to gain time, it's convenient to have some; but I think it does more harm in the long run than will balance these temporary benefits. The trouble is, human nature is weak, and it isn't every shipmaster that can have charge of it without crooking his own elbow too often. Then again, all men can't stand it alike; and though some of us might bear two glasses well enough, others will get drunk and make difficulty on the same quantity, for, of course, you must serve all hands alike. We haven't all got systems like old Captain Harper, in the Deucalion. He could drink a deck-bucketful of New England rum, and stand up under it and back it round. I've seen him do it many a time.""Now, Cooper," said I, "go it now, you've got started.""Maybe you don't believe it, youngster," said thecooper, shaking his immense beard with the gravity of a sage. "But you have seen very little of the world yet. WhatI've seen, I know.""Sh' think he'd burn hisself all up," said the cook, extending his mouth in a grin, till the upper part of his head formed a peninsula."Had no more effect than pouring it into a leaky cask," continued the cooper, who had now mounted his hobby. "Perfect salamander! I always believed he was coppered inside. Why, I've seen that old man make many a meal off of red peppers, and wash them down with raw brandy.""Why not say aquafortis?" I suggested."No, I don't want to deviate from the truth," said the conscientious cooper. "I don't mean aquafortis, but I mean good Cognac brandy. Drink a potful of boiling tea right out of the cook's copper, just as natural as I'd take a drink of water from the scuttlebutt.""Dere, Cooper, dat'll do," said the astonished African. "He must been some relation to dat Sally Mander, or somebody else wuss'n her. I was going to ask you how much you ever see a sparm whale make? Jeff says he seen one make a hund'ed and fifteen barrels.""That isn't much," said the cooper, quietly. "When I was in the old Bajazet, we got a sperm whale in sight of French Rock, and it came on to blow, and we had an ugly job to cut him. We lost all his case; it got pretty old and mellow alongside, and 'shot' before we got hooked on it to. We got the junk in by cuttingit in two pieces, for the old man wouldn't risk the mainmast to lift the whole on it. Well, we saved a hundred and sixty-four barrels, and I suppose we lost about forty.""Tell that for anybody to believe it, Cooper?" asked Old Jeff. "I can't get up tackles enough to h'ist in the yard. It's heavier than that junk was.""Took the gauges of every cask myself," said the cooper."Must be you made a mistake in addin' on 'em up. How long was that whale, now, on a guess?""Well, I don't know; the Bajazet was a ship of three hundred and fifty tons, about the length of this one, I suppose; we brought the fluke-chain in at thehawse hole, and hauled it short up and down, and the mate had his cutting-stage over the stern to cut around the nib end; the head worked in under the counter sometimes and bothered him!""And did ye's have much throuble to kill that chap?" asked Farrell."None at all; laid like an island, you might have thrown a whole blacksmith's shop into him.""Do they often get whales as easily as we got this one to-day?" I inquired."Yes, a great many are taken as easy as that. But not always, as you'll find out by and by; for there's all kinds of manœuvres with whales, and hardly any two of 'em will act just alike.""Did you ever see any very bad ones taken?" I inquired."Well—no—not very bad," returned the cooper,evasively; for, much as he felt disposed to draw the long bow on this sonorous string, he was by no means regardless of the interest of the voyage, and well knew the bad policy of telling frightful yarns to green hands concerning fighting whales. It would be time enough for that when they had acquired some experience, and seen a few ugly whales themselves. He was not to be drawn out on this subject."Well, Cooper, how moosh you tink dis one he make?" inquired Manoel."About ninety barrels.""Well, how moosh my part?""What's your lay?""Hun'n forty.""Well, about two-thirds of a barrel.""I s'poseyouget 'bout two bar-r-r-eels. Diabo! you make too moosh mon-ee, Cooper.""Got half a dozen mouths to feed," returned the cooper. "But that's nothing to do with turning in; my pipe's out, and I guess I'll turn flukes, for the old man will have us all out at daylight, and there'll be no cats but what catch mice to-morrow."Following his example, the boys all dropped off to their bunks, till only the watch were left, and they were stretched round on the windlass, or wherever they could find quarters, for the deck was lumbered with casks, cutting-falls, hooks, toggils, and various gear necessary for securing the blubber from the whale.The weather continued fine through the night, and at the first peep of daylight Captain Upton was outand stirring. "Who's got the watch here? Call all hands out, and overboard hook! I want that head off before breakfast. Clap on there, the watch, and haul out this starboard guy a little more! Whose overboard is it?""Mine, Sir!" answered Bunker, who was equipping himself in an old short-sleeved shirt, a relic of "last voyage," and an old pair of woollen drawers, preparatory to jumping over on the whale to put in the blubber-hook, a part of the boatsteerer's duty far more desirable within the tropics than in higher latitudes, and especially to be eschewed on a cold, rugged morning in the Arctic regions."Over hook!" shouted Father Grafton, as soon as the crew began to muster along. "Bear a hand, boys, and stand by the windlass! Overhaul your fall well! Now then, Bunker, where are you? Now's your chance—smooth time! Here, Blacksmith, you belong to the hold gang. I shall put you in the waist gang, too. Stay here in the gangway, and lend a hand with the boatsteerers."The hook was soon in, and Mr. Grafton in his stage under the main chains with a long spade, the second mate in the forward stage with another. The old man had become ubiquitous, and was in twenty places at one and the same time."Here, Kelly, I shall appoint you captain of the scoop-net. Get a strap-tub along here ready to sling by the backstays, and get your net all ready. When they cut round the head, stand by to save all the slivers, and if you let a piece of fat go astern as big as a half-dollar, I shall stop it out of your lay. Hoistaway that fall! Heave the windlass some of ye, and get the slack in! Here, Collins, go aft there, and stay with the carpenter to turn grindstone. Keep your ears peeled for the word 'sharp spade!' from over the side, and don't make them sing out a dozen times or I shall be hunting you up myself. Boatsteerers! get the short spades all ready to use in the waist? That's right. Hook take well, Mr. Grafton? Here, pick up that monkey-rope, Fisher, and keep it out of the grease. Heave away that windlass? Where areyou, Jeff, with the song? Open your throat—Mr. Dunham, be careful and don't cut your blanketpiece too wide. Sharp spade into the after stage! Mr. Johnson, let me whet this boarding-knife for you. I used to be a good hand at it. Avast heaving, there! Keep your ears open, and mind the word!"All circumstances being favorable, the head was cut off before breakfast, and the body all in the blubber-room by nine o'clock, Captain Upton driving a spade into it with a perfect gusto, and slashing it into horse pieces almost as fast as it was stowed in the hatchway. The windlass went round "slip slop" to the lively strains chanted by Old Jeff, and chorused by all hands in various keys, making the clear air vocal with discord. I made considerable progress in the technicalities of "Board O!" and "In strap and toggle!" as well as in the equally important mystery of preserving myaplombon the greasy deck, having been on my beam ends only twice during the whole operation. To the startling hail from the old man, "What are you doing down on deck? That'smyplace!" I made no audiblereply but a laugh; but mentally responded, that if that were the old man's place, he was quite welcome to keep it.The heaviest work was to come in getting the junk inboard. It was roused forward into the waist, and after considerable "overhauling" and "rounding up," and some hard service for Bunker in getting a chain strap through the "junk," it was at last cut from the "case" and fairly hung in the tackles. All hands went to the windlass; the waist gang, the third and second mates found room with the rest; even Father Grafton lent a hand, and encouraged the others to lay out their strength on the bars. The captain again pervaded the whole deck, glancing anxiously aloft at his masthead pendants and tacklefalls to see how they bore the immense strain, and from time to time breaking forth in a sort of exhortation, half-command, half-entreaty, "Heave hard, men! Heave and raise him! Few squares more and we'll have him!"The good cordage of the falls groaned under the tension, as each ropeyarn seemed to yield a little to assist the rest, and the Arethusa heeled lower and lower at each additional "downpawls!" of the windlass, till her starboard plankshear was but little above the surface of the water. Slowly but steadily, by almost imperceptible degrees, the ponderous junk rose from its watery bed, its scarred black skin showing, in the ragged furrows and white streaks on its surface the marks of many a shock received in angry encounters with other sea monsters, and the mingled oil and water streaming at every pore and running in a gushfrom the hole where the chain-strap was cutting and jamming into the fat under the fearful strain. The mainmast-head itself could be seen to "give" sensibly to the weight, and the larboard main-shrouds to stiffen like bars of iron."Heave, boys! Square or two more!" said the captain, as the mighty mass began to cant inboard. "That's lively! Downpawls again! That watchtackle ready boatsteerers? High enough! Lay aft here, and get this tackle ready! There he swings lower! Lower away! Hook on and rouse him aft! What time is it? Slide him well aft, Mr. Grafton, out of the way! Steward! pass up my quadrant? We'll get dinner, Mr. Grafton, before we sling the case.""An' sure," said Farrell, as he came sliding and tumbling aft with the rest, to haul the tackle, "and is that his head, now?""Head? no!" growled Old Jeff, "that's only a small piece of it."The other "small piece" was hooked on immediately after dinner, and after another struggle at the windlass brakes was raised half out of water, and suspended in the tackles with the "root end" at the plankshear, for baling. A block and whip were rigged over it and we now cleared up the mystery of a certain long vessel of peculiar shape, which we had seen the cooper making a few days before, and which that worthy had solemnly assured us was asine qua nonin navigating the ship; the sun and moon being brought down with a sextant till their images could be seen in contact at the bottom of the bucket. Wewere lost in admiration as load after load of spermaceti was "whipped" out of the "case," and discharged into tubs placed ready to receive it, and found great amusement in being set to work to pull to pieces, by hand, the fibrous part of the head matter, and squeeze it out ready for the pots. We contrived ingeniously to get saturated with oil from head to foot, to the great enjoyment of Mr. Dunham, who protested we had already appropriated our lays of this whale, and vowed he would try out all our duds when the fare was over."Let's see, Cooper," said the fun-loving second mate, "you didn't save the case of that big whale I heard you telling about?""In the old Bajazet? No, sir; I wish we had.""How much do you suppose it would have made?""From thirty to forty barrels.""That's nothing," said Mr. Dunham. "We saw a Sydney whaler last voyage that baled sixty barrels from a case not as big as this one in the tackles.""How could he do that?" demanded the cooper, innocently."Hooked it nib end up, and cut chock through the root. Baled salt water a couple of hours before he found it out."The cooper turned away, and became suddenly industrious with his hammer and driver, to drown the roar of laughter that saluted him from all quarters.

"CUTTING IN."

The necessary operations on the new ship's rigging had somewhat encroached upon the progress of other duties, connected with the whaling gear, during the few days since we left home. The cutting pendants were to be got over the masthead, not yet having been sent aloft; the falls were new and wiry; but few cutting-spades rigged or ground, and the best part of the afternoon was consumed in getting all things in readiness for cutting; and, as there was every prospect of fine weather, it was determined not to hook on until the next morning. Boat's crew-watches were set, as is common when lying under short sail, boatsteerers being in charge of the deck by turns, each with his own boat's crew, thus making three, or in large ships, four watches. This was a grand occasion for yarning in the first watch, as every one was up, looking at the leviathan alongside, swashing with every heave of the sea, and tugging at the stout fluke chain as the rise of the ship brought a strain upon it; as though still instinct with life and impatient of his bonds.

"Well, Jeff," said the ebony doctor, as he stood leaning over the rail after having finished his work for the night, "how much ile you tink dat whale make?"

"That whale," returned Jeff, measuring his dimensions with his eye, with a look of most profound sagacity, "that whale will stow down a hund'ed barrels, if we save him clean."

"Save him clean? Save him fast enough," said the cook. "Fine weather."

"Yes, 'tis now, but you don't know how long it will be so," said Old Jeff, who was in one of his "blue-lights" humors. "You don't know what the weather'll be to-morrow."

"Guess it'll be good enough."

"You've got no business to guess. Who shipped any such black ghost as you to guess about the weather?"

"Blackghost, eh! You know what the pot called the kettle, Jeff? Yah! yah! You aint more'n a half-price nigger, nohow. You wouldn't fetch more'n fifty dollars in Kentucky, if you be big. Sh' think you might be big, too; you eats 'bout six men's allowance. Look o' me, now; I don't eat nothin' hardly."

"You've no business to eat anything. The cook's always 'lowed to live on the smell."

"Smell, eh! 'spects dats de reason dey always ships black man for cook. Carry his own smell wid him eh? Not strong like Samson but like billy-goat. Now, you see, Jeff, you'm strong bofe ways."

"Am I?" said Jeff, seizing the unfortunate doctor by the leg and the back of his neck, and holding him suspended over the whale in his Herculean grasp. "I've a good mind to give you an overboard bunkon this whale, just to show you the difference between a cook's berth and a boatsteerer's."

"O Lord!" gasped the cook, when he was released, and once more found soundings with his feet on the deck, "you'm pretty strong one way, anyhow. Well, now, Jeff, how much did you ever see a whale make?"

"A hund'ed and eighty barrels."

"What! a sparm whale?"

"Didn't say nothin' bout sparm whale. No, a right whale; the first voyage I went on Pattygoney."

"O! I mean a sparm whale."

"Well, I seen one make a hund'ed and fifteen barrels, that's the most. Now, here comes Cooper. Got his pipe loaded, too. I'll bet he's seen bigger one than that. Ask him now."

The boys began to rally to a focus along the starboard-waist, as they saw the cooper coming forward.

"Cooper," said I, "where's your fiddle to-night? Are you going to fetch her up?"

"No, guess not to-night. Plenty of work for all of us to-morrow without shaking a leg over night."

"Yes, plenty of work and no grog," growled Burley. "That's the worst of these temperance ships. They expect a man to work like a dog, and give him nothing to warm his heart. If men stood up for their rights, they'd have it. A man's entitled to two glasses a day, anyhow."

"Not without he ships for it," said Jeff.

"Yes, I say he is," said the sea-lawyer.

"How's that?"

"Why, by the natural rights of man."

"What the plague do you call the natural rights of man?" said the cooper, among whose crooked traits intemperance was not included. "I don't want to see grog served out in any ship where I am."

"Well, I wish the ould man would jist ask me to take a dhrop wid him," said Farrell. "Of course, I'd refuse; but, then, 'twould be doin' the nate thing on his part."

"I've seen so much of the bad effects of liquor," said the cooper, "that I don't want to be shipmates with it at all. It does a man no good in the long run. Sometimes, it's true, he can get steam up, and work faster for a short time, but he feels all the worse after the liquor dies in him. In such a case as cutting a whale in bad weather, where you want to gain time, it's convenient to have some; but I think it does more harm in the long run than will balance these temporary benefits. The trouble is, human nature is weak, and it isn't every shipmaster that can have charge of it without crooking his own elbow too often. Then again, all men can't stand it alike; and though some of us might bear two glasses well enough, others will get drunk and make difficulty on the same quantity, for, of course, you must serve all hands alike. We haven't all got systems like old Captain Harper, in the Deucalion. He could drink a deck-bucketful of New England rum, and stand up under it and back it round. I've seen him do it many a time."

"Now, Cooper," said I, "go it now, you've got started."

"Maybe you don't believe it, youngster," said thecooper, shaking his immense beard with the gravity of a sage. "But you have seen very little of the world yet. WhatI've seen, I know."

"Sh' think he'd burn hisself all up," said the cook, extending his mouth in a grin, till the upper part of his head formed a peninsula.

"Had no more effect than pouring it into a leaky cask," continued the cooper, who had now mounted his hobby. "Perfect salamander! I always believed he was coppered inside. Why, I've seen that old man make many a meal off of red peppers, and wash them down with raw brandy."

"Why not say aquafortis?" I suggested.

"No, I don't want to deviate from the truth," said the conscientious cooper. "I don't mean aquafortis, but I mean good Cognac brandy. Drink a potful of boiling tea right out of the cook's copper, just as natural as I'd take a drink of water from the scuttlebutt."

"Dere, Cooper, dat'll do," said the astonished African. "He must been some relation to dat Sally Mander, or somebody else wuss'n her. I was going to ask you how much you ever see a sparm whale make? Jeff says he seen one make a hund'ed and fifteen barrels."

"That isn't much," said the cooper, quietly. "When I was in the old Bajazet, we got a sperm whale in sight of French Rock, and it came on to blow, and we had an ugly job to cut him. We lost all his case; it got pretty old and mellow alongside, and 'shot' before we got hooked on it to. We got the junk in by cuttingit in two pieces, for the old man wouldn't risk the mainmast to lift the whole on it. Well, we saved a hundred and sixty-four barrels, and I suppose we lost about forty."

"Tell that for anybody to believe it, Cooper?" asked Old Jeff. "I can't get up tackles enough to h'ist in the yard. It's heavier than that junk was."

"Took the gauges of every cask myself," said the cooper.

"Must be you made a mistake in addin' on 'em up. How long was that whale, now, on a guess?"

"Well, I don't know; the Bajazet was a ship of three hundred and fifty tons, about the length of this one, I suppose; we brought the fluke-chain in at thehawse hole, and hauled it short up and down, and the mate had his cutting-stage over the stern to cut around the nib end; the head worked in under the counter sometimes and bothered him!"

"And did ye's have much throuble to kill that chap?" asked Farrell.

"None at all; laid like an island, you might have thrown a whole blacksmith's shop into him."

"Do they often get whales as easily as we got this one to-day?" I inquired.

"Yes, a great many are taken as easy as that. But not always, as you'll find out by and by; for there's all kinds of manœuvres with whales, and hardly any two of 'em will act just alike."

"Did you ever see any very bad ones taken?" I inquired.

"Well—no—not very bad," returned the cooper,evasively; for, much as he felt disposed to draw the long bow on this sonorous string, he was by no means regardless of the interest of the voyage, and well knew the bad policy of telling frightful yarns to green hands concerning fighting whales. It would be time enough for that when they had acquired some experience, and seen a few ugly whales themselves. He was not to be drawn out on this subject.

"Well, Cooper, how moosh you tink dis one he make?" inquired Manoel.

"About ninety barrels."

"Well, how moosh my part?"

"What's your lay?"

"Hun'n forty."

"Well, about two-thirds of a barrel."

"I s'poseyouget 'bout two bar-r-r-eels. Diabo! you make too moosh mon-ee, Cooper."

"Got half a dozen mouths to feed," returned the cooper. "But that's nothing to do with turning in; my pipe's out, and I guess I'll turn flukes, for the old man will have us all out at daylight, and there'll be no cats but what catch mice to-morrow."

Following his example, the boys all dropped off to their bunks, till only the watch were left, and they were stretched round on the windlass, or wherever they could find quarters, for the deck was lumbered with casks, cutting-falls, hooks, toggils, and various gear necessary for securing the blubber from the whale.

The weather continued fine through the night, and at the first peep of daylight Captain Upton was outand stirring. "Who's got the watch here? Call all hands out, and overboard hook! I want that head off before breakfast. Clap on there, the watch, and haul out this starboard guy a little more! Whose overboard is it?"

"Mine, Sir!" answered Bunker, who was equipping himself in an old short-sleeved shirt, a relic of "last voyage," and an old pair of woollen drawers, preparatory to jumping over on the whale to put in the blubber-hook, a part of the boatsteerer's duty far more desirable within the tropics than in higher latitudes, and especially to be eschewed on a cold, rugged morning in the Arctic regions.

"Over hook!" shouted Father Grafton, as soon as the crew began to muster along. "Bear a hand, boys, and stand by the windlass! Overhaul your fall well! Now then, Bunker, where are you? Now's your chance—smooth time! Here, Blacksmith, you belong to the hold gang. I shall put you in the waist gang, too. Stay here in the gangway, and lend a hand with the boatsteerers."

The hook was soon in, and Mr. Grafton in his stage under the main chains with a long spade, the second mate in the forward stage with another. The old man had become ubiquitous, and was in twenty places at one and the same time.

"Here, Kelly, I shall appoint you captain of the scoop-net. Get a strap-tub along here ready to sling by the backstays, and get your net all ready. When they cut round the head, stand by to save all the slivers, and if you let a piece of fat go astern as big as a half-dollar, I shall stop it out of your lay. Hoistaway that fall! Heave the windlass some of ye, and get the slack in! Here, Collins, go aft there, and stay with the carpenter to turn grindstone. Keep your ears peeled for the word 'sharp spade!' from over the side, and don't make them sing out a dozen times or I shall be hunting you up myself. Boatsteerers! get the short spades all ready to use in the waist? That's right. Hook take well, Mr. Grafton? Here, pick up that monkey-rope, Fisher, and keep it out of the grease. Heave away that windlass? Where areyou, Jeff, with the song? Open your throat—Mr. Dunham, be careful and don't cut your blanketpiece too wide. Sharp spade into the after stage! Mr. Johnson, let me whet this boarding-knife for you. I used to be a good hand at it. Avast heaving, there! Keep your ears open, and mind the word!"

All circumstances being favorable, the head was cut off before breakfast, and the body all in the blubber-room by nine o'clock, Captain Upton driving a spade into it with a perfect gusto, and slashing it into horse pieces almost as fast as it was stowed in the hatchway. The windlass went round "slip slop" to the lively strains chanted by Old Jeff, and chorused by all hands in various keys, making the clear air vocal with discord. I made considerable progress in the technicalities of "Board O!" and "In strap and toggle!" as well as in the equally important mystery of preserving myaplombon the greasy deck, having been on my beam ends only twice during the whole operation. To the startling hail from the old man, "What are you doing down on deck? That'smyplace!" I made no audiblereply but a laugh; but mentally responded, that if that were the old man's place, he was quite welcome to keep it.

The heaviest work was to come in getting the junk inboard. It was roused forward into the waist, and after considerable "overhauling" and "rounding up," and some hard service for Bunker in getting a chain strap through the "junk," it was at last cut from the "case" and fairly hung in the tackles. All hands went to the windlass; the waist gang, the third and second mates found room with the rest; even Father Grafton lent a hand, and encouraged the others to lay out their strength on the bars. The captain again pervaded the whole deck, glancing anxiously aloft at his masthead pendants and tacklefalls to see how they bore the immense strain, and from time to time breaking forth in a sort of exhortation, half-command, half-entreaty, "Heave hard, men! Heave and raise him! Few squares more and we'll have him!"

The good cordage of the falls groaned under the tension, as each ropeyarn seemed to yield a little to assist the rest, and the Arethusa heeled lower and lower at each additional "downpawls!" of the windlass, till her starboard plankshear was but little above the surface of the water. Slowly but steadily, by almost imperceptible degrees, the ponderous junk rose from its watery bed, its scarred black skin showing, in the ragged furrows and white streaks on its surface the marks of many a shock received in angry encounters with other sea monsters, and the mingled oil and water streaming at every pore and running in a gushfrom the hole where the chain-strap was cutting and jamming into the fat under the fearful strain. The mainmast-head itself could be seen to "give" sensibly to the weight, and the larboard main-shrouds to stiffen like bars of iron.

"Heave, boys! Square or two more!" said the captain, as the mighty mass began to cant inboard. "That's lively! Downpawls again! That watchtackle ready boatsteerers? High enough! Lay aft here, and get this tackle ready! There he swings lower! Lower away! Hook on and rouse him aft! What time is it? Slide him well aft, Mr. Grafton, out of the way! Steward! pass up my quadrant? We'll get dinner, Mr. Grafton, before we sling the case."

"An' sure," said Farrell, as he came sliding and tumbling aft with the rest, to haul the tackle, "and is that his head, now?"

"Head? no!" growled Old Jeff, "that's only a small piece of it."

The other "small piece" was hooked on immediately after dinner, and after another struggle at the windlass brakes was raised half out of water, and suspended in the tackles with the "root end" at the plankshear, for baling. A block and whip were rigged over it and we now cleared up the mystery of a certain long vessel of peculiar shape, which we had seen the cooper making a few days before, and which that worthy had solemnly assured us was asine qua nonin navigating the ship; the sun and moon being brought down with a sextant till their images could be seen in contact at the bottom of the bucket. Wewere lost in admiration as load after load of spermaceti was "whipped" out of the "case," and discharged into tubs placed ready to receive it, and found great amusement in being set to work to pull to pieces, by hand, the fibrous part of the head matter, and squeeze it out ready for the pots. We contrived ingeniously to get saturated with oil from head to foot, to the great enjoyment of Mr. Dunham, who protested we had already appropriated our lays of this whale, and vowed he would try out all our duds when the fare was over.

"Let's see, Cooper," said the fun-loving second mate, "you didn't save the case of that big whale I heard you telling about?"

"In the old Bajazet? No, sir; I wish we had."

"How much do you suppose it would have made?"

"From thirty to forty barrels."

"That's nothing," said Mr. Dunham. "We saw a Sydney whaler last voyage that baled sixty barrels from a case not as big as this one in the tackles."

"How could he do that?" demanded the cooper, innocently.

"Hooked it nib end up, and cut chock through the root. Baled salt water a couple of hours before he found it out."

The cooper turned away, and became suddenly industrious with his hammer and driver, to drown the roar of laughter that saluted him from all quarters.

CHAPTER VIII.BOILING.—CUTTING THE LINE.—DUTCH COURAGE.—"MAN OVERBOARD."The "case" having been stripped of its oleaginous treasures, was cut adrift, and the Arethusa, with the yards again trimmed to the breeze, stood on her course to the southward. The "junk" was then cut up and thrown into casks, to save all the oil that was continually oozing from it, and the fires were started for boiling. "Try-watches" were set at night, by dividing the time into two equal portions, each watch taking the whole five or six hours on one stretch. The Portuguese Manoel and myself were appointed to work in the blubber-room, which is, perhaps, the best station in trying out, as the fortunate incumbent has but one department to attend to, and being under deck, is not exposed to the weather. Besides, he is much of the time "out of sight out of mind," and, by cutting fast for an hour or two, may gain upon his work so as to find time for "slants" of sleep or "catnaps," so termed, till roused again by the cry of "horsepieces!" at the hatchway. Now and then, Father Grafton, in going the rounds, would stoop over the hatchway, and peer in between decks, with a call to the sleepers:"Halloo, Blacksmith! Manoel, what are you doing away in there?""Leaning, sir!" would be the ready reply of the Portuguese; which was strictly true. He was "leaning" against a cask, sound asleep.A whaleship trying out at night presents one of the most weird and striking pictures that can well be imagined. But to enjoy it in full, the observer must take his station near the mainmast, looking forward, and this during his watch below, as his duties would otherwise subject him to certain interruptions which sadly mar the poetry of the thing. Alone, on the face of the waters, rides your floating home; the darkness around her intensified and rendered more opaque by the glare of light from the try-fires, and utterly impervious on the lee-beam and quarter from the thick clouds of smoke continually floating off in that direction. The brawny forms of the boatsteerers, thrown into strong relief in the centre group, as they tend the fires and the seething caldrons, which require their constant care and attention to ensure a fine quality of oil; the "mincer" on the left, industriously flourishing his broad, keen knife in the firelight; the cooper, fudging at a leaky cask, half hidden in darkness under the lee of the "cooler;" the deckhands flitting about at their various duties, appearing and vanishing in gloom, like spirits dancing in an ever-changing light, now livid, now lurid; now dying away till the smoke pall seems almost to envelop the whole picture, then suddenly bursting forth again with startling brightness, as the boatsteerer throws a freshgreasy scrap on the "back arches," and runs his long pike under the fires to stir up "Old Hallett;" the brilliant glare upon the rigging and sails of the foremast, seeming to reveal each lay of the cordage, each thread of the canvas, with a fidelity and minuteness of detail far exceeding that produced by daylight; all together form a scene to which no description can do justice, but of which every whaleman must acknowledge having felt the influence. The captain and the officers who are not on duty on the first watch seem to loiter round the mainmast, as though unwilling to lose the pleasure of the view even to seek necessary rest; and to enjoy their pipes with more than ordinary zest, as they call up reminiscences of large fares taken on former voyages, or count the tiers of sturdy ironbound casks already filled and lashed along the rail, and glancing between decks at the blubber yet uncut, make calculations and estimates of the probable yield of the whale. All is cheerfulness and hope at such times, and the prospects of the voyage seemed to partake of the brightness of the caboose fires. Wives and children are remembered with new affection at such moments; and each feels nearer to home and friends at each recurring sound of the light-driven bung, and the inspiring cry, "Away cask!" Truly is it remarked by old whalemen that the most delightful parts of a voyage are "boiling" and arriving home.The weather continued fine during the whole time occupied in boiling and stowing down, so that I may say I saw the first whale killed and taken care of undervery favorable circumstances, and treating lightly the croaking hints of the oldsters, thus formed an opinion of whaling in general which subsequent experience did not altogether confirm.Our good ship sped merrily on her voyage, and, after taking the trade winds, still more rapid progress was made. The equator was crossed without any of those time-honored ceremonies of initiation into old Neptune's realms which have formed the staple of so many yarns by old voyagers. Indeed, it is hardly to be supposed that the green hands would be subjected to much abuse or rough treatment from their equals in rank, where they themselves form the majority of the ship's company. Mr. Dunham, however, did not let the occasion pass without attempting a practical joke. Having the first watch on deck, he came forward, and calling a young greenhorn from Connecticut, who rejoiced in the ironical appellation of "Black Hawk," perhaps from his utter want of resemblance, in any one particular, to that illustrious chieftain:"Black Hawk," said he, confidentially, "I want you to get the cook's axe, and go out on the martingale, and stand by to cut the line. I expect we shall be up with it now in about half an hour, and you must look sharp and cut it quick, or it will bring the ship up all standing.""How big round is it?" asked the apparently innocent Black Hawk."About as thick as your arm; but if you get a good lick at it, you'll cut it in time, or at least cut some ofthe strands, so the ship will break it without stopping her.""Do ships always have to cut the line when they pass along here, sir?" inquired the youngster, who was not half so green as his appearance indicated."Yes, certainly they do.""And how does it get j'ined together again?""Why, old Neptune and his crew pick up the ends and splice it, after the ship has passed by," said Mr. Dunham, who was rather puzzled by this catechism, and did not quite understand the drift of it."And how long does it take 'em to get it j'ined again?""Well—I suppose it would take two or three hours to get the strands all tucked, and put it in good order.""Well, sir, when I came down from aloft (you know I had the sundown masthead, sir), there was a ship in sight ahead, and I guess she must have cut it about an hour ago; so they haint got through j'inin' on it yet. I guess we can slip through, sir, while the bars are down." And the baffled second mate went aft with a flea in his ear.Black Hawk, with all his apparent verdancy, was probably his superior in general knowledge; and though he had seen the black equator on the maps, had a pretty clear idea of the meaning of the words "imaginary line."We had light and baffling weather after crossing the line, and made but little progress for some days. We fell in company with several merchant vessels, allbound to the southward; but as they were always making the best of their way to a port of destination, they held no intercourse with us, beyond showing their national flags, and, if near enough for it to be seen, their longitude, chalked upon a blackboard, we responding in each case by showing ours. In one instance, however, we communicated with a stranger, which led to incidents both serious and ludicrous, to break the monotony of our sea life. A bark had been in sight of us all day, steering on the same course as ourselves. She had shown Dutch colors, but the wind being very light in the afternoon, the old man ordered his boat lowered, and pulled alongside of her. He was absent about a couple of hours, and returned with some Dutch cheese and other small matters. I noticed that some of the boat's crew appeared unusually jolly and demonstrative when they came alongside; but the boat was hoisted and they went forward, no attention being paid to them. It was surmised, of course, that they had been treated to a glass while on board the Dutchman. I asked Farrell, who was as happy as a lord, what the bark's name was."Divil a name of her I can tell ye," said Farrell; "but she belongs to some dam place or other; there's a dam about it, anyhow, 'pon my soul. I think it's Rotterdam. But they've got the good stuff there that'll warm your heart and loosen your tongue. Come here till I show ye." And dodging behind the galley, he produced from the capacious folds of his shirt a bottle of schnapps!"Dhrink," said Farrell. "Dhrink a health to the rotten-dam Dutchman.""But how did you manage to smuggle this on board, Farrell?""Ah, lave Corny Farrell alone for that! Don't say a word; Burley has the twin to it."I was fearful we should have some trouble before the two bottles were disposed of. However, I had no idea of turning informer, but even took a small drink from Farrell's bottle, thinking there would be the less for some one else, and the more it was subdivided, the less effect it would have on any one man.The bottles were passed round the forecastle, and there was enough to make all hands a little lively and talkative, but not enough to produce any ill effect, except in the case of the two proprietors of the bottles themselves, who had taken the lion's share at starting, and had preserved the remnants for private consumption. Old Jeff said to me, during our watch on deck, on coming out of the forecastle where he had been to light his pipe:"Blacksmith, there'll be fun, I think, when the starboard watch is called. Farrell is pretty noisy and happy; he wont make any trouble unless it's by some wild freak; but Burley is as tight as a brick, and it's his turnout wheel. He's blowing about his rights, and swears he wont go to the wheel, nor he wont stand a watch; so I think there'll be fun, for Mr. Dunham wont stand much nonsense with him.""Well, I guess his blowing wont amount to much," said I. "He'll cool down as soon as the second mate comes.""Think so?" said Jeff anxiously."Yes," spoke up Obed B. "There'll be no great trouble withhim.""I hear that you and Kelly wound him up and set him back. Was that so Hoeg? I didn't see that fun, for I was at the masthead. I only heard of it afterwards.""Well, he hasn't tried to bully either of us since," said Hoeg. "It's my opinion he's a great coward."Six bells struck, and the watch was called. Mr. Dunham came on deck, and, as usual, looked to see if the wheel was relieved. Finding it was not, he came forward."Antone, do you know whose wheel it is?" he asked."Burley's, sir.""Why isn't he there?""He say he no goin' to stand watch to-night, sir.""Why not? is he sick?""I don't know 'f he call sick. I calldrunk, sir.""O that's it? Well, we'll see about that."The second mate put his head over the scuttle, and listened a moment. Burley was laying down law and logic at a terrible rate, in spite of the remonstrances of his watchmates, who entreated him either to go on deck or else turn in, and let others have rest and quiet."I know my rights, and I'm the man to stand up for 'em!" said Burley. "I'm not going to stand a watch to-night, and I'd just like to see the live man that would make me go on deck!""Here he is then!" said Mr. Dunham, as, clearing the ladder with a swing of his body, he landed on his feet by the side of the astonished sea-lawyer."On deck, sir, at once, before I put you there!"Burley turned his head and caught the second mate's eye. HisDutchcourage failed him altogether. He found the upper deck so quick that the officer would not have found it easy to overtake him, had he been disposed to assault him; though he evidently did not consider him worth wasting wrath upon."What did I tell you?" said Obed B., quietly."Now," said Mr. Dunham, "you keep above deck the next four hours, and don't put your head below the scuttle. I don't want you at the wheel now; you are not fit to be there. Antone, go to the wheel. I'll see that he stands your next trick and his own too.""Arrah, Misther Burley! and where's your rights that you've been blowin' about?" said Farrell. "You've only been making Billy Fitzgibbons's mother of yerself, and yer perfarmances don't come up to yer promises, at all."I fell asleep with Farrell rattling away at him over my head; but I was sure the contemptible scamp was nearly powerless now as to any influence over the youngsters; for we had all set him down as a very Bob Acres, whose courage would ooze out at his fingers' ends, when brought to the scratch.I had just got into a sound sleep, when we were all brought out of our bunks on the jump by the thrilling cry—I almost think I hear it now—"Man overboard!"All was dark; the light in the forecastle had gone out; but, guided by the little patch of sky showing down the scuttle, I was on deck in an instant, with mytrousers in my hand. Here, all was confusion; the ship was coming up to the wind with everything slatting; the watch were clearing away the starboard boat, Fisher having already cut the gripes, and I was in her before she was half way down the side. I remember asking "Who is it?" and some one, I did not know who, said, "Farrell." I remember thinking that I had heard Farrell say he could swim a little. We shoved clear of the ship, and got our oars out; she had taken aback, and was going round, but we pulled out as near as possible in her old wake—nothing was to be seen! With anxious eyes and heavy hearts we looked about us. Here is something floating; we lay round for it; it is the life-preserver which has been cut adrift from the taffrail; but where is the man?? We pull still further out in the wake of the ship, and heave up again; something ripples here abeam of us. "Lay round quick!"We pass the spot. I think I can see a white pool or ring on the surface, and I involuntarily thrust my arm deep down; it touches something—the hair of my shipmate, sinking for the last time."Help here!" And Fisher and Black Hawk are at my side. They seize his shoulders and he is roused into the boat, and laid, face down, across the thwarts."Give way for the ship!" And we are quickly alongside, for she is now lying with the head yards aback, and lights set to tell us her whereabouts.All has passed so quickly that I seem to have dreamed it all, and to have woke now for the first time. He soon shows signs of life, under the activetreatment he is receiving, and he has revived sufficiently to sit up and look about him before the question is asked, by the old man:"How did he fall overboard?"No one seems to know. Black Hawk answers that he heard the splash in the water, and a cry immediately after, and running to the side, saw a head bob up abreast the fore-chains, and gave the alarm.By this time, Farrell enlightens us himself, by pointing forward with his arm, gasping out the single word "Parrp'ses," then is taken with retching again, brings up another pint of sea-water, and can give no further information at present.I ran forward. The porpoise line (which was kept ready rove in tail-block on the bowsprit) was towering under the bow. I seized and rounded it in, and brought up the "iron," or rather the pole and socket thereof, the shank being broken off close up. It would seem that Farrell, having the lookout, and all the rest being comfortably snoozing, had discovered porpoises playing under the bow, and being in the humor for a lark, determined to strike one "on his own hook," without calling for reinforcements until after he was "fast." But neither his head nor his heels being very trustworthy at the time, he darted the iron in one direction from the martingale guy, and himself in another. The porpoise must have been struck most effectually, and while we were busily engaged in saving the man, he had writhed in his agony under the bows, till he had wrung the shank of the iron off."Well, Farrell, my boy," said Mr. Grafton, "how do you feel after your Baptism?""Well, sir, I feel pretty well bothered, but I'll warrant the parr'pus is nearer dead than I am.""Yes, you struck him solid, at any rate," said the mate."An' sure, sir," returned Farrell, "don't you always stern all, sir, as soon as you're fast?""Yes, that's according to rule; but circumstances may alter cases. It was a narrow squeak for you, at any rate. You'll be in no hurry to catch porpoises again in a dark night, alone.""Bad luck to the soaking I got?" said Farrell, as he went forward. "It's taken all the snap out o' me—and the schnapps too."Manifold were the jokes cracked at the young Irishman's expense, after this adventure; for with seamen, as with soldiers, a miss is as good as a mile, always, and that which is almost a tragedy becomes the very ideal of a farce.But the redoubtable Burley was effectually stripped of his teeth and claws. He was as harmless as an old blunderbuss, which after having been apparently well loaded, primed andschnapped, has flashed in the pan. The captain said nothing to indicate that he knew any thing of the liquor having been brought on board. He was not a man to say much to his crew, except in the way of necessary duty; and he probably resolved to be silent and more watchful in the future. But I overheard him telling the mate, the next night, as I stood at the wheel, that Farrell seemed a smart youngfellow, and he thought he would make a slashing boatsteerer, if one should be wanted, "especially," he added, dryly, "if we could always speak a Dutchman just before we lowered."

BOILING.—CUTTING THE LINE.—DUTCH COURAGE.—"MAN OVERBOARD."

The "case" having been stripped of its oleaginous treasures, was cut adrift, and the Arethusa, with the yards again trimmed to the breeze, stood on her course to the southward. The "junk" was then cut up and thrown into casks, to save all the oil that was continually oozing from it, and the fires were started for boiling. "Try-watches" were set at night, by dividing the time into two equal portions, each watch taking the whole five or six hours on one stretch. The Portuguese Manoel and myself were appointed to work in the blubber-room, which is, perhaps, the best station in trying out, as the fortunate incumbent has but one department to attend to, and being under deck, is not exposed to the weather. Besides, he is much of the time "out of sight out of mind," and, by cutting fast for an hour or two, may gain upon his work so as to find time for "slants" of sleep or "catnaps," so termed, till roused again by the cry of "horsepieces!" at the hatchway. Now and then, Father Grafton, in going the rounds, would stoop over the hatchway, and peer in between decks, with a call to the sleepers:

"Halloo, Blacksmith! Manoel, what are you doing away in there?"

"Leaning, sir!" would be the ready reply of the Portuguese; which was strictly true. He was "leaning" against a cask, sound asleep.

A whaleship trying out at night presents one of the most weird and striking pictures that can well be imagined. But to enjoy it in full, the observer must take his station near the mainmast, looking forward, and this during his watch below, as his duties would otherwise subject him to certain interruptions which sadly mar the poetry of the thing. Alone, on the face of the waters, rides your floating home; the darkness around her intensified and rendered more opaque by the glare of light from the try-fires, and utterly impervious on the lee-beam and quarter from the thick clouds of smoke continually floating off in that direction. The brawny forms of the boatsteerers, thrown into strong relief in the centre group, as they tend the fires and the seething caldrons, which require their constant care and attention to ensure a fine quality of oil; the "mincer" on the left, industriously flourishing his broad, keen knife in the firelight; the cooper, fudging at a leaky cask, half hidden in darkness under the lee of the "cooler;" the deckhands flitting about at their various duties, appearing and vanishing in gloom, like spirits dancing in an ever-changing light, now livid, now lurid; now dying away till the smoke pall seems almost to envelop the whole picture, then suddenly bursting forth again with startling brightness, as the boatsteerer throws a freshgreasy scrap on the "back arches," and runs his long pike under the fires to stir up "Old Hallett;" the brilliant glare upon the rigging and sails of the foremast, seeming to reveal each lay of the cordage, each thread of the canvas, with a fidelity and minuteness of detail far exceeding that produced by daylight; all together form a scene to which no description can do justice, but of which every whaleman must acknowledge having felt the influence. The captain and the officers who are not on duty on the first watch seem to loiter round the mainmast, as though unwilling to lose the pleasure of the view even to seek necessary rest; and to enjoy their pipes with more than ordinary zest, as they call up reminiscences of large fares taken on former voyages, or count the tiers of sturdy ironbound casks already filled and lashed along the rail, and glancing between decks at the blubber yet uncut, make calculations and estimates of the probable yield of the whale. All is cheerfulness and hope at such times, and the prospects of the voyage seemed to partake of the brightness of the caboose fires. Wives and children are remembered with new affection at such moments; and each feels nearer to home and friends at each recurring sound of the light-driven bung, and the inspiring cry, "Away cask!" Truly is it remarked by old whalemen that the most delightful parts of a voyage are "boiling" and arriving home.

The weather continued fine during the whole time occupied in boiling and stowing down, so that I may say I saw the first whale killed and taken care of undervery favorable circumstances, and treating lightly the croaking hints of the oldsters, thus formed an opinion of whaling in general which subsequent experience did not altogether confirm.

Our good ship sped merrily on her voyage, and, after taking the trade winds, still more rapid progress was made. The equator was crossed without any of those time-honored ceremonies of initiation into old Neptune's realms which have formed the staple of so many yarns by old voyagers. Indeed, it is hardly to be supposed that the green hands would be subjected to much abuse or rough treatment from their equals in rank, where they themselves form the majority of the ship's company. Mr. Dunham, however, did not let the occasion pass without attempting a practical joke. Having the first watch on deck, he came forward, and calling a young greenhorn from Connecticut, who rejoiced in the ironical appellation of "Black Hawk," perhaps from his utter want of resemblance, in any one particular, to that illustrious chieftain:

"Black Hawk," said he, confidentially, "I want you to get the cook's axe, and go out on the martingale, and stand by to cut the line. I expect we shall be up with it now in about half an hour, and you must look sharp and cut it quick, or it will bring the ship up all standing."

"How big round is it?" asked the apparently innocent Black Hawk.

"About as thick as your arm; but if you get a good lick at it, you'll cut it in time, or at least cut some ofthe strands, so the ship will break it without stopping her."

"Do ships always have to cut the line when they pass along here, sir?" inquired the youngster, who was not half so green as his appearance indicated.

"Yes, certainly they do."

"And how does it get j'ined together again?"

"Why, old Neptune and his crew pick up the ends and splice it, after the ship has passed by," said Mr. Dunham, who was rather puzzled by this catechism, and did not quite understand the drift of it.

"And how long does it take 'em to get it j'ined again?"

"Well—I suppose it would take two or three hours to get the strands all tucked, and put it in good order."

"Well, sir, when I came down from aloft (you know I had the sundown masthead, sir), there was a ship in sight ahead, and I guess she must have cut it about an hour ago; so they haint got through j'inin' on it yet. I guess we can slip through, sir, while the bars are down." And the baffled second mate went aft with a flea in his ear.

Black Hawk, with all his apparent verdancy, was probably his superior in general knowledge; and though he had seen the black equator on the maps, had a pretty clear idea of the meaning of the words "imaginary line."

We had light and baffling weather after crossing the line, and made but little progress for some days. We fell in company with several merchant vessels, allbound to the southward; but as they were always making the best of their way to a port of destination, they held no intercourse with us, beyond showing their national flags, and, if near enough for it to be seen, their longitude, chalked upon a blackboard, we responding in each case by showing ours. In one instance, however, we communicated with a stranger, which led to incidents both serious and ludicrous, to break the monotony of our sea life. A bark had been in sight of us all day, steering on the same course as ourselves. She had shown Dutch colors, but the wind being very light in the afternoon, the old man ordered his boat lowered, and pulled alongside of her. He was absent about a couple of hours, and returned with some Dutch cheese and other small matters. I noticed that some of the boat's crew appeared unusually jolly and demonstrative when they came alongside; but the boat was hoisted and they went forward, no attention being paid to them. It was surmised, of course, that they had been treated to a glass while on board the Dutchman. I asked Farrell, who was as happy as a lord, what the bark's name was.

"Divil a name of her I can tell ye," said Farrell; "but she belongs to some dam place or other; there's a dam about it, anyhow, 'pon my soul. I think it's Rotterdam. But they've got the good stuff there that'll warm your heart and loosen your tongue. Come here till I show ye." And dodging behind the galley, he produced from the capacious folds of his shirt a bottle of schnapps!

"Dhrink," said Farrell. "Dhrink a health to the rotten-dam Dutchman."

"But how did you manage to smuggle this on board, Farrell?"

"Ah, lave Corny Farrell alone for that! Don't say a word; Burley has the twin to it."

I was fearful we should have some trouble before the two bottles were disposed of. However, I had no idea of turning informer, but even took a small drink from Farrell's bottle, thinking there would be the less for some one else, and the more it was subdivided, the less effect it would have on any one man.

The bottles were passed round the forecastle, and there was enough to make all hands a little lively and talkative, but not enough to produce any ill effect, except in the case of the two proprietors of the bottles themselves, who had taken the lion's share at starting, and had preserved the remnants for private consumption. Old Jeff said to me, during our watch on deck, on coming out of the forecastle where he had been to light his pipe:

"Blacksmith, there'll be fun, I think, when the starboard watch is called. Farrell is pretty noisy and happy; he wont make any trouble unless it's by some wild freak; but Burley is as tight as a brick, and it's his turnout wheel. He's blowing about his rights, and swears he wont go to the wheel, nor he wont stand a watch; so I think there'll be fun, for Mr. Dunham wont stand much nonsense with him."

"Well, I guess his blowing wont amount to much," said I. "He'll cool down as soon as the second mate comes."

"Think so?" said Jeff anxiously.

"Yes," spoke up Obed B. "There'll be no great trouble withhim."

"I hear that you and Kelly wound him up and set him back. Was that so Hoeg? I didn't see that fun, for I was at the masthead. I only heard of it afterwards."

"Well, he hasn't tried to bully either of us since," said Hoeg. "It's my opinion he's a great coward."

Six bells struck, and the watch was called. Mr. Dunham came on deck, and, as usual, looked to see if the wheel was relieved. Finding it was not, he came forward.

"Antone, do you know whose wheel it is?" he asked.

"Burley's, sir."

"Why isn't he there?"

"He say he no goin' to stand watch to-night, sir."

"Why not? is he sick?"

"I don't know 'f he call sick. I calldrunk, sir."

"O that's it? Well, we'll see about that."

The second mate put his head over the scuttle, and listened a moment. Burley was laying down law and logic at a terrible rate, in spite of the remonstrances of his watchmates, who entreated him either to go on deck or else turn in, and let others have rest and quiet.

"I know my rights, and I'm the man to stand up for 'em!" said Burley. "I'm not going to stand a watch to-night, and I'd just like to see the live man that would make me go on deck!"

"Here he is then!" said Mr. Dunham, as, clearing the ladder with a swing of his body, he landed on his feet by the side of the astonished sea-lawyer.

"On deck, sir, at once, before I put you there!"

Burley turned his head and caught the second mate's eye. HisDutchcourage failed him altogether. He found the upper deck so quick that the officer would not have found it easy to overtake him, had he been disposed to assault him; though he evidently did not consider him worth wasting wrath upon.

"What did I tell you?" said Obed B., quietly.

"Now," said Mr. Dunham, "you keep above deck the next four hours, and don't put your head below the scuttle. I don't want you at the wheel now; you are not fit to be there. Antone, go to the wheel. I'll see that he stands your next trick and his own too."

"Arrah, Misther Burley! and where's your rights that you've been blowin' about?" said Farrell. "You've only been making Billy Fitzgibbons's mother of yerself, and yer perfarmances don't come up to yer promises, at all."

I fell asleep with Farrell rattling away at him over my head; but I was sure the contemptible scamp was nearly powerless now as to any influence over the youngsters; for we had all set him down as a very Bob Acres, whose courage would ooze out at his fingers' ends, when brought to the scratch.

I had just got into a sound sleep, when we were all brought out of our bunks on the jump by the thrilling cry—I almost think I hear it now—"Man overboard!"

All was dark; the light in the forecastle had gone out; but, guided by the little patch of sky showing down the scuttle, I was on deck in an instant, with mytrousers in my hand. Here, all was confusion; the ship was coming up to the wind with everything slatting; the watch were clearing away the starboard boat, Fisher having already cut the gripes, and I was in her before she was half way down the side. I remember asking "Who is it?" and some one, I did not know who, said, "Farrell." I remember thinking that I had heard Farrell say he could swim a little. We shoved clear of the ship, and got our oars out; she had taken aback, and was going round, but we pulled out as near as possible in her old wake—nothing was to be seen! With anxious eyes and heavy hearts we looked about us. Here is something floating; we lay round for it; it is the life-preserver which has been cut adrift from the taffrail; but where is the man?? We pull still further out in the wake of the ship, and heave up again; something ripples here abeam of us. "Lay round quick!"

We pass the spot. I think I can see a white pool or ring on the surface, and I involuntarily thrust my arm deep down; it touches something—the hair of my shipmate, sinking for the last time.

"Help here!" And Fisher and Black Hawk are at my side. They seize his shoulders and he is roused into the boat, and laid, face down, across the thwarts.

"Give way for the ship!" And we are quickly alongside, for she is now lying with the head yards aback, and lights set to tell us her whereabouts.

All has passed so quickly that I seem to have dreamed it all, and to have woke now for the first time. He soon shows signs of life, under the activetreatment he is receiving, and he has revived sufficiently to sit up and look about him before the question is asked, by the old man:

"How did he fall overboard?"

No one seems to know. Black Hawk answers that he heard the splash in the water, and a cry immediately after, and running to the side, saw a head bob up abreast the fore-chains, and gave the alarm.

By this time, Farrell enlightens us himself, by pointing forward with his arm, gasping out the single word "Parrp'ses," then is taken with retching again, brings up another pint of sea-water, and can give no further information at present.

I ran forward. The porpoise line (which was kept ready rove in tail-block on the bowsprit) was towering under the bow. I seized and rounded it in, and brought up the "iron," or rather the pole and socket thereof, the shank being broken off close up. It would seem that Farrell, having the lookout, and all the rest being comfortably snoozing, had discovered porpoises playing under the bow, and being in the humor for a lark, determined to strike one "on his own hook," without calling for reinforcements until after he was "fast." But neither his head nor his heels being very trustworthy at the time, he darted the iron in one direction from the martingale guy, and himself in another. The porpoise must have been struck most effectually, and while we were busily engaged in saving the man, he had writhed in his agony under the bows, till he had wrung the shank of the iron off.

"Well, Farrell, my boy," said Mr. Grafton, "how do you feel after your Baptism?"

"Well, sir, I feel pretty well bothered, but I'll warrant the parr'pus is nearer dead than I am."

"Yes, you struck him solid, at any rate," said the mate.

"An' sure, sir," returned Farrell, "don't you always stern all, sir, as soon as you're fast?"

"Yes, that's according to rule; but circumstances may alter cases. It was a narrow squeak for you, at any rate. You'll be in no hurry to catch porpoises again in a dark night, alone."

"Bad luck to the soaking I got?" said Farrell, as he went forward. "It's taken all the snap out o' me—and the schnapps too."

Manifold were the jokes cracked at the young Irishman's expense, after this adventure; for with seamen, as with soldiers, a miss is as good as a mile, always, and that which is almost a tragedy becomes the very ideal of a farce.

But the redoubtable Burley was effectually stripped of his teeth and claws. He was as harmless as an old blunderbuss, which after having been apparently well loaded, primed andschnapped, has flashed in the pan. The captain said nothing to indicate that he knew any thing of the liquor having been brought on board. He was not a man to say much to his crew, except in the way of necessary duty; and he probably resolved to be silent and more watchful in the future. But I overheard him telling the mate, the next night, as I stood at the wheel, that Farrell seemed a smart youngfellow, and he thought he would make a slashing boatsteerer, if one should be wanted, "especially," he added, dryly, "if we could always speak a Dutchman just before we lowered."

CHAPTER IX."GAMMING" WITH A "HOMEWARD-BOUNDER."When in the latitude of Cape St. Augustine, being close-hauled, with light breezes at east-south-east a ship was "raised" in the afternoon, under a cloud of light canvas, steering to the northward. As she gradually neared us, she was made out by her boats and other significant marks to be a homeward-bound whaler, and by altering her course a little, showed her intention of passing within hail and speaking us. The order was given to haul the mainsail up and square the mainyard, and the good ship, arrested in her course, seemed to sit in state, like a hostess, to receive company. The decks were cleared up, and work knocked off at an earlier hour than usual; and the slowly approaching stranger now became the centre of attraction, and the subject of much argument and speculation, each of the old hands recognizing her as some ship he knew or had sailed in, so that in half an hour, she had been christened by more names than would have fitted half the Nantucket fleet, which at that period was no inconsiderable number. Old Jeff knew it was the Colossus by something peculiar about her spritsail-yard; a very reasonable supposition, inasmuch as the Colossuswas only four months from Nantucket, outward bound, while the copper, or rather the want of it, on the stranger's bottom, showed unmistakable signs of at least three years' wear and tear. The cooper was morally certain it was the Deucalion, for no other ship ever had, or possibly could have, a pair of anchor-stocks of that shape; but when reminded that she was only one year out, and her voyage probably not completed, compromised the matter by the hypothesis that the ship in sight must have spoken the Deucalion, and bought her anchor; a case which was voted to be far more possible than probable. The old man and his mates were thinking of all the ships that ought to be homeward-bound at that time, and calling her first one and then another; but the conclusion arrived at was that she must be some "outlandishman," as the islanders then termed the New London and Sag Harbor whalers, who defiled their ships with "right whale glue," rather than cruise four years exclusively for sperm.The meeting of two ships at sea is a beautiful and imposing affair. I was deeply interested in the sight, as the stranger drew nearer and nearer. He had hauled in his studdingsails, and brailed up both courses, seeming at times to slide down to leeward on a declivity, and then to stop suddenly, as if arrested by some unseen power. The breeze was light, and the sea comparatively smooth, but I was surprised to see how considerable her rolling motion was, even under these circumstances. Rough-looking men, clad in garments of more colors than the coat of Joseph ever boasted, couldbe seen clustered round the bows, and stretching their heads over the bulwarks, and two or three had climbed into the waist-boat, to get a better view. The skipper, a large, dark-looking man, sat in the head of the labored quarter-boat, from time to time turning his head to speak to his helmsman, and waving his brass trumpet to enforce the order. Captain Upton, with a similar instrument, was mounted on the taffrail, his mates standing near him, a little in the background. The stillness, as the ships neared each other, was unbroken now, save by the occasional rustle of a sail aloft, or the slight washing of the water under the bows of the stranger. Some one was seen to run forward with a spyglass, and, after bringing it to bear for a moment upon our stern, to hurry aft again with a report to the strange captain. The ship appeared at this moment to be heading directly into us, as though bent on striking us amidships and running us down. Some of us, clustered at the weather rail, involuntarily began to draw back, fearing a collision; but again, at a wave of the dark man's trumpet the ship, obedient to her helm, fell slowly off, so as to pass just clear, across our stern. Silence more profound than ever."Who commands the Arethusa?" shouted a hoarse voice, through the brass tube."Upton!" responded the other brass tube."Hope you're very well, Captain Upton!" said brass tube number one, obscuring the face of the speaker like a total eclipse."Very well, thank you," answered tube number two in the same style. "What ship is that, pray?""Mandarin, of Nantucket.""Hope to see you well, Captain Barney."Much muttering now ensued among our wiseacres, each of whom had known it was the Mandarin all along, and had told all the rest so, half an hour ago. Anybody might have known that was the Mandarin's figure-head. All which somewhat interfered with the clear understanding of the rest of the dialogue, which was now carried on between the brass tubes at a furious rate. "What success?—Sixteen hundred.—What port are you from last?—Oahu.—How long are you from home?—Forty-five days.—Got any letters for us?—Yes. Come aboard.—Thank you, I will." A flourish of the trumpet, and the Mandarin's crew are seen running to the braces, as her helm is clapped a starboard, and she rounds to the wind at a handsome distance under our lee, with her maintopsail thrown aback for an old-fashioned "gam."Supper is delayed for the guests to arrive; several of us dive below, embracing the opportunity to write a few lines to our friends at home; Old Jeff growls at us for being in such a hurry, and says there's plenty of time between now and midnight; for we are sure to "gam" till that time."Captain Barney and the old man are cronies, and they'll have to kill all the whales in the ocean across the cabin table, before they part company."A light whaleboat is presently seen to drop from under the Mandarin's lee-quarter, and comes bounding to windward under the powerful impulse of her oars, the sturdy and regular strokes telling of old and trainedhands who wield them. A petty officer is steering, while his majesty the captain stands firmly planted in the stern sheets, with his legs spread apart in an attitude suggestive of an inverted letter Y, and benignly regards his loyal subjects at the oars, who stretch to their work in gallant style, as if conscious that they "bear Cæsar and his fortunes." The principal impelling motive, however, is their eagerness to levy contributions upon the "greenies." Already they imagine themselves returning with bundles of books and papers tied up with rope-yarns, and shirt-bosoms corpulent with new tobacco, a luxury to which their teeth have been strangers for many a day."Ship in, harp'neer! way enough! Look out for the warp in the waist!""Halloo, old man!" says Captain Barney, as he recognizes Father Grafton at the man-ropes, "you out here again?"Then as his head rises above the rail, "How goes it, Upton? S'pose you've got a crack ship here by the look of things. Well, how did you leave old Nantucket? 'Taint sunk yet, has it?" A common question with whalemen when they meet, and asked with as much gravity as that of the noble Thane, Macduff, "Stands Scotland where it did?" or as though islands were in the habit of submerging themselves every day in the week.A hearty greeting and hand-shaking follows, with a few hurried questions and replies, an introduction to the other officers, and an invitation to our mate to go on board and spend the evening with Mr. Joy."Do you swap boats' crews, Upton?""Yes, I don't care; let them go."So the boat is manned with a crew of Arethusas, myself among the number, and Mr. Grafton steers himself, not yet having arrived at the dignity of a body guard. It was nearly dark when we arrived alongside, and as soon as the boat was on the cranes and secured, all hands made a "grand forward movement" to supper, and I now had leisure to look about me, and to compare the vessel and her veteran looking crew with the Arethusa and my own shipmates.The forecastle of the Mandarin was small, dingy and dark, even in the daytime, having only two small decklights and no sidelights, a modern luxury which had not then come into general use. She had boasted a steerage in the early part of the voyage, but this had been broken up, and all hands quartered in the forecastle—sixteen men in twelve bunks, some of them turning in and out, watch and watch. An old battered blubber-room lamp hung from a beam overhead, and gave just sufficient light to make darkness visible. Two little ones, of the kind known as "petticoat lamps," were now added, and each furnished light enough to see that the other was burning. The old adage that "a farrier's mare and a cobbler's wife are always slipshod" is fully verified in the case of a whaleman's lamp; for those who supply the world with oil burn it in its crude state.There was room enough in the forecastle, small as it was; for not half the crew had chests, and their goods and chattels could be compressed into a verysmall compass. The supper was not exactly what would have tempted a gourmand; still it was all that could be expected on board a ship forty-four months from home. The cows must have gone astray, for the supply of milk had failed:domesticcoffee, compounded of burnt peas and corn, had usurped the place of the imported article; while it was evident that the visitors, if in time for supper, had come too late fortea. The bread was thickly colonized, and the salt junk better adapted for the manufacture of fancy carved work and articles ofvirtuthan for purposes of mastication. It was, of course, a point of honor with us green hands to overlook these little drawbacks, and even to affect an eccentric taste for the ancient viands; but our hosts were not at all backward in expressing their dissatisfaction with this state of things.This crew were mostly "beach-combers," men who had joined the ship during the voyage, many of them in the last port, and knew little and cared less about the history of the voyage previous to the time they shipped. They were full of tales of their adventures in other vessels from which they had deserted or been discharged, and of encounters with consuls, captains of the port,vigilantes, and other functionaries, commonly regarded as Jack's natural enemies; while those luckless shipmasters who had availed themselves of their services must have lived in perpetual jeopardy during the time they remained on board.I inquired of the man upon whom I was quartered at supper, "how long the ship was out.""That's more than I can tell you," returned thecruiser. "I've been only four months in this hooker. There's Dan and 'Shorty,' they are the only two men in the fo'c'stle that came from home in her. They can tell you; all the rest of us are cruisers.""Where did you join her?" I asked."In Oahu. I ran away from the Cambridge, of New Bedford, and stowed away here in the fore peak. The 'kikos' came aboard three times, hunting for runaway men; but I'll defy any kiko to catchme.""What's a kiko?" I inquired."That's what they call the Kanaka policemen. They used to come down and take off the fore peak scuttle, and look down, and shove their sticks in; but you see they don't have but one pair of white trousers apiece, and don't mean to get 'em dirty. But if any kiko had crawled in where I was, he wouldn't have got out again alive.""Why not?" I inquired, innocently."'Cause I'd have let daylight through him!"I looked at the speaker reflectively, and involuntarily hitched a little further from him on the chest, feeling somewhat doubtful of close companionship with so dangerous a character. Yet the probability is, this man was as arrant a Falstaff as could be found in a day's journey."What made you run away from the Cambridge?""O, me and the old man had a row. Besides, I had been eight months in her, and that's long enough to be in one craft. I'd like to see the——hooker that would keepmea year."The speaker prefixed to the word hooker a sanguinary adjective, which is not applicable to ships except after a hard-fought action."Do you expect to stay out the voyage in that hooker?" inquired the beach-comber."Yes," said I, "I think I shall. I've been well used so far, and have nothing to complain of. I don't see any reason to leave the ship, with the chance of getting into a worse one.""Ah, my lad, you're green yet. Wait awhile till you've seen more service, and you'll get tired of staying so long in one craft. I say, shift about and go by the cruise. Six months is plenty long enough in one hooker."Some of the green hands were swallowing this kind of poison by wholesale; each one listening to a yarn of how the narrator had humbugged a shipping master, or bullied an American "counsle," or knocked over an officer of a ship in the discharge of his duty. The pleasures of a drunken spree and row with the police of a foreign port were duly set forth, and the peculiar delights of life in a calaboose depicted in glowing colors. But this species of conversation flagged after a time. The Mandarins boasted no musical instrument; but that curse and abomination of the forecastle, a greasy pack of cards, was produced, and furnished pastime for a small knot in one corner for a short time.Dan and "Shorty," the two "voyagers," brought up from the depths of their chests some canes, busks, and other fancy articles or "scrimshonting," as it istermed by whalers, ingeniously fabricated from whales' teeth and jaw bones, some of which they were willing to exchange for tobacco, the principal necessary of life among seamen on long voyages, and their universal circulating medium and standard of value. An article of traffic at sea, instead of being estimated at so many dollars and cents, is rated at so many pounds of tobacco; a thing which is nearly worthless is "not worth a chaw of tobacco;" a disputed question is generally settled by betting a certain quantity of tobacco, and a notorious romancer is often interrupted in the midst of a thrilling story, with the inquiry, "How much tobacco have you got?" meaning, "How much can you give us to believe it? We'll believe anything, if you've got tobacco enough to put it through."And yet, through all the rough entertainment there shone a vein of politeness and deference to their guests, a certain delicacy which never deserts the sailor, and which might be studied with profit by many accustomed to the most courtly circles. A man who should overstep certain bounds in his intercourse with visitors from a strange ship, or be guilty of the slightest breach of a certain etiquette, not defined by Chesterfield's laws, but natural and of spontaneous growth, as it were, would be taken to task unmercifully by his shipmates; and slights which would pass current in a fashionable evening party, with both nobs and snobs, would never be overlooked in a whalemen's "gam."A song was called for by somebody; the motionwas seconded and carried,nem. con.; cards were thrown aside, "scrimshonting" articles returned to their depositories; and after some little clamor, it was decided that "Old Scotty," a tall, sunburned salt, who had served, according to his own statement, in one of the maintops of his most nautical majesty William the Fourth, should open the musical programme with that delectable chorus, "The stormy winds how they blow, blow, blow," which he executed after the most approved and orthodox style, rolling up the whites of his eyes at the carlines overhead, as though he expected that the roaring chorus in which all lands joined, would lift the deck off, and afford him a view of the heavens. A burst of applause followed the last verse, which I must confess I construed to be a manifestation of joy that it was finished, and of gratitude that there was no more of it to be endured. The Arethusas were now called upon to respond, and after some comparing of notes and prompting each other, Farrell struck up the time-honored confession of the misguided Irish youth who committed matrimony at the tender age of sixteen, and "died forlorn on Steven's Green," and afterwards wrote his autobiography in common metre, his last earthly request being that his pall might be borne by six disconsolate young ladies, all dressed in white gowns and pink ribbons. This song is a stock article with Irish and seamen, for what reason it would be hard to tell. A stout, jolly-looking Mandarin next electrified the auditors with the sentimental refrain of "O no, we never mention her!" with original quaversand variations, chanted in a voice of thunder; and was followed by Old Scotty, who rolled his eyes higher than ever as he poured himself out in a heartrending ballad, describing the fate of a certain Miss Caroline of Edinboro town, who at an untimely age "shuffled off this mortal coil," and "plunged her body down," after giving preciselythreeshrieks for Henry, neither more nor less. This pathetic outbreak again brought up the Arethusas in force, and the entertainment was sustained with great vigor on both sides, the songs being of various descriptions, and some, like newspaper novelettes, broken off in the middle of a verse, "to be continued hereafter." Some of the volunteer performers would have passed for good singers where tunes were not in fashion, while others, if they had fitted all the snatches together into one, might have furnished a medley of a highly original character. The veritable history of that unfortunate mariner, William Taylor, who was sent to his last account by the contents of a brace of pistols in the hands of his slighted "ladie love," having been caughtin flagrante delicto, basking in the smiles of another fair one, was interrupted at a most thrilling crisis by the cry of "Brace forward the mainyard!" for the Arethusa had forged considerably ahead, while both ships were lying aback. It took some time to do this, as by a singular fatality, nobody had a watch on deck; all the men who should by any possibility have had one had gone gamming. Thedenouementof the fickle Taylor's story was lost, as the helm required the singer's services.The last act of the evening partook much of thenature of the first, being filled with marvellous tales of exploits, and "moving accidents by flood," and comparison of notes touching the respective merits of ships, captains and officers. The cry of "Haul aback" cut short several half-finished stories, and brought everybody on deck to look at the Arethusa, now running to leeward with a light set as a signal of recall for her mate and boat's crew. A murmur of admiration went round among us, at the appearance of the crack ship looming in the clear moonlight, as, having assumed the lee position, she rounded gracefully to again, when the boat was cleared away and manned, with hearty farewells on both sides."Good-night, Joy," said Father Grafton, as he descended the man-ropes. "Short passage home to you. Deliver my letter yourself when you get there.""Ay, ay," returned the Mandarin's mate. "Greasy luck to you!""Thank you," said Grafton. "A large whale for you to-morrow," with the additional reservation, "and two forus. Let go the warp! out oars—pull ahead!"We arrived on board our own ship to find a scene similar to that we had just left. Some of the Mandarins had found a congenial spirit in the sea-lawyer Burley, and others had fulfilled their mission by "bumming" considerable quantities of tobacco and literature from the younger lads. Manoel and Antone had monopolized a Portuguese boatsteerer, and formed a trio aside for a conference highly interesting to themselves and possessing the additional merit of being unintelligible to all the rest.The Mandarin having run to leeward in her turn, the word was passed to "man the boat;" and, for a wonder, they waited alongside only three quarters of an hour. But Captain Barney was an uncommonly prompt man in his movements; the usual standard in such cases being one hour and a quarter.In a few minutes, the rusty-looking ship was off on her northerly course for "home, sweet home," bearing messages to gladden the hearts of many interested in the fate of those on board her late consort, who was again standing by the wind to the southward.The first inoculation of what may be designated "salt poison" had taken effect among our crew, and much mischief had been done by this apparently harmless visit. Those who had hitherto been cheerful and satisfied with all around them, now began to discover flaws and defects, viewing things and actions through new and distorted lenses; instituting parallels between the methods of doing the most trifling duties on board different vessels, and discoursing nautical wisdom at second hand with all the gravity and dogmatism of experienced tars. Truly may it be said in connection that "comparisons are odious."

"GAMMING" WITH A "HOMEWARD-BOUNDER."

When in the latitude of Cape St. Augustine, being close-hauled, with light breezes at east-south-east a ship was "raised" in the afternoon, under a cloud of light canvas, steering to the northward. As she gradually neared us, she was made out by her boats and other significant marks to be a homeward-bound whaler, and by altering her course a little, showed her intention of passing within hail and speaking us. The order was given to haul the mainsail up and square the mainyard, and the good ship, arrested in her course, seemed to sit in state, like a hostess, to receive company. The decks were cleared up, and work knocked off at an earlier hour than usual; and the slowly approaching stranger now became the centre of attraction, and the subject of much argument and speculation, each of the old hands recognizing her as some ship he knew or had sailed in, so that in half an hour, she had been christened by more names than would have fitted half the Nantucket fleet, which at that period was no inconsiderable number. Old Jeff knew it was the Colossus by something peculiar about her spritsail-yard; a very reasonable supposition, inasmuch as the Colossuswas only four months from Nantucket, outward bound, while the copper, or rather the want of it, on the stranger's bottom, showed unmistakable signs of at least three years' wear and tear. The cooper was morally certain it was the Deucalion, for no other ship ever had, or possibly could have, a pair of anchor-stocks of that shape; but when reminded that she was only one year out, and her voyage probably not completed, compromised the matter by the hypothesis that the ship in sight must have spoken the Deucalion, and bought her anchor; a case which was voted to be far more possible than probable. The old man and his mates were thinking of all the ships that ought to be homeward-bound at that time, and calling her first one and then another; but the conclusion arrived at was that she must be some "outlandishman," as the islanders then termed the New London and Sag Harbor whalers, who defiled their ships with "right whale glue," rather than cruise four years exclusively for sperm.

The meeting of two ships at sea is a beautiful and imposing affair. I was deeply interested in the sight, as the stranger drew nearer and nearer. He had hauled in his studdingsails, and brailed up both courses, seeming at times to slide down to leeward on a declivity, and then to stop suddenly, as if arrested by some unseen power. The breeze was light, and the sea comparatively smooth, but I was surprised to see how considerable her rolling motion was, even under these circumstances. Rough-looking men, clad in garments of more colors than the coat of Joseph ever boasted, couldbe seen clustered round the bows, and stretching their heads over the bulwarks, and two or three had climbed into the waist-boat, to get a better view. The skipper, a large, dark-looking man, sat in the head of the labored quarter-boat, from time to time turning his head to speak to his helmsman, and waving his brass trumpet to enforce the order. Captain Upton, with a similar instrument, was mounted on the taffrail, his mates standing near him, a little in the background. The stillness, as the ships neared each other, was unbroken now, save by the occasional rustle of a sail aloft, or the slight washing of the water under the bows of the stranger. Some one was seen to run forward with a spyglass, and, after bringing it to bear for a moment upon our stern, to hurry aft again with a report to the strange captain. The ship appeared at this moment to be heading directly into us, as though bent on striking us amidships and running us down. Some of us, clustered at the weather rail, involuntarily began to draw back, fearing a collision; but again, at a wave of the dark man's trumpet the ship, obedient to her helm, fell slowly off, so as to pass just clear, across our stern. Silence more profound than ever.

"Who commands the Arethusa?" shouted a hoarse voice, through the brass tube.

"Upton!" responded the other brass tube.

"Hope you're very well, Captain Upton!" said brass tube number one, obscuring the face of the speaker like a total eclipse.

"Very well, thank you," answered tube number two in the same style. "What ship is that, pray?"

"Mandarin, of Nantucket."

"Hope to see you well, Captain Barney."

Much muttering now ensued among our wiseacres, each of whom had known it was the Mandarin all along, and had told all the rest so, half an hour ago. Anybody might have known that was the Mandarin's figure-head. All which somewhat interfered with the clear understanding of the rest of the dialogue, which was now carried on between the brass tubes at a furious rate. "What success?—Sixteen hundred.—What port are you from last?—Oahu.—How long are you from home?—Forty-five days.—Got any letters for us?—Yes. Come aboard.—Thank you, I will." A flourish of the trumpet, and the Mandarin's crew are seen running to the braces, as her helm is clapped a starboard, and she rounds to the wind at a handsome distance under our lee, with her maintopsail thrown aback for an old-fashioned "gam."

Supper is delayed for the guests to arrive; several of us dive below, embracing the opportunity to write a few lines to our friends at home; Old Jeff growls at us for being in such a hurry, and says there's plenty of time between now and midnight; for we are sure to "gam" till that time.

"Captain Barney and the old man are cronies, and they'll have to kill all the whales in the ocean across the cabin table, before they part company."

A light whaleboat is presently seen to drop from under the Mandarin's lee-quarter, and comes bounding to windward under the powerful impulse of her oars, the sturdy and regular strokes telling of old and trainedhands who wield them. A petty officer is steering, while his majesty the captain stands firmly planted in the stern sheets, with his legs spread apart in an attitude suggestive of an inverted letter Y, and benignly regards his loyal subjects at the oars, who stretch to their work in gallant style, as if conscious that they "bear Cæsar and his fortunes." The principal impelling motive, however, is their eagerness to levy contributions upon the "greenies." Already they imagine themselves returning with bundles of books and papers tied up with rope-yarns, and shirt-bosoms corpulent with new tobacco, a luxury to which their teeth have been strangers for many a day.

"Ship in, harp'neer! way enough! Look out for the warp in the waist!"

"Halloo, old man!" says Captain Barney, as he recognizes Father Grafton at the man-ropes, "you out here again?"

Then as his head rises above the rail, "How goes it, Upton? S'pose you've got a crack ship here by the look of things. Well, how did you leave old Nantucket? 'Taint sunk yet, has it?" A common question with whalemen when they meet, and asked with as much gravity as that of the noble Thane, Macduff, "Stands Scotland where it did?" or as though islands were in the habit of submerging themselves every day in the week.

A hearty greeting and hand-shaking follows, with a few hurried questions and replies, an introduction to the other officers, and an invitation to our mate to go on board and spend the evening with Mr. Joy.

"Do you swap boats' crews, Upton?"

"Yes, I don't care; let them go."

So the boat is manned with a crew of Arethusas, myself among the number, and Mr. Grafton steers himself, not yet having arrived at the dignity of a body guard. It was nearly dark when we arrived alongside, and as soon as the boat was on the cranes and secured, all hands made a "grand forward movement" to supper, and I now had leisure to look about me, and to compare the vessel and her veteran looking crew with the Arethusa and my own shipmates.

The forecastle of the Mandarin was small, dingy and dark, even in the daytime, having only two small decklights and no sidelights, a modern luxury which had not then come into general use. She had boasted a steerage in the early part of the voyage, but this had been broken up, and all hands quartered in the forecastle—sixteen men in twelve bunks, some of them turning in and out, watch and watch. An old battered blubber-room lamp hung from a beam overhead, and gave just sufficient light to make darkness visible. Two little ones, of the kind known as "petticoat lamps," were now added, and each furnished light enough to see that the other was burning. The old adage that "a farrier's mare and a cobbler's wife are always slipshod" is fully verified in the case of a whaleman's lamp; for those who supply the world with oil burn it in its crude state.

There was room enough in the forecastle, small as it was; for not half the crew had chests, and their goods and chattels could be compressed into a verysmall compass. The supper was not exactly what would have tempted a gourmand; still it was all that could be expected on board a ship forty-four months from home. The cows must have gone astray, for the supply of milk had failed:domesticcoffee, compounded of burnt peas and corn, had usurped the place of the imported article; while it was evident that the visitors, if in time for supper, had come too late fortea. The bread was thickly colonized, and the salt junk better adapted for the manufacture of fancy carved work and articles ofvirtuthan for purposes of mastication. It was, of course, a point of honor with us green hands to overlook these little drawbacks, and even to affect an eccentric taste for the ancient viands; but our hosts were not at all backward in expressing their dissatisfaction with this state of things.

This crew were mostly "beach-combers," men who had joined the ship during the voyage, many of them in the last port, and knew little and cared less about the history of the voyage previous to the time they shipped. They were full of tales of their adventures in other vessels from which they had deserted or been discharged, and of encounters with consuls, captains of the port,vigilantes, and other functionaries, commonly regarded as Jack's natural enemies; while those luckless shipmasters who had availed themselves of their services must have lived in perpetual jeopardy during the time they remained on board.

I inquired of the man upon whom I was quartered at supper, "how long the ship was out."

"That's more than I can tell you," returned thecruiser. "I've been only four months in this hooker. There's Dan and 'Shorty,' they are the only two men in the fo'c'stle that came from home in her. They can tell you; all the rest of us are cruisers."

"Where did you join her?" I asked.

"In Oahu. I ran away from the Cambridge, of New Bedford, and stowed away here in the fore peak. The 'kikos' came aboard three times, hunting for runaway men; but I'll defy any kiko to catchme."

"What's a kiko?" I inquired.

"That's what they call the Kanaka policemen. They used to come down and take off the fore peak scuttle, and look down, and shove their sticks in; but you see they don't have but one pair of white trousers apiece, and don't mean to get 'em dirty. But if any kiko had crawled in where I was, he wouldn't have got out again alive."

"Why not?" I inquired, innocently.

"'Cause I'd have let daylight through him!"

I looked at the speaker reflectively, and involuntarily hitched a little further from him on the chest, feeling somewhat doubtful of close companionship with so dangerous a character. Yet the probability is, this man was as arrant a Falstaff as could be found in a day's journey.

"What made you run away from the Cambridge?"

"O, me and the old man had a row. Besides, I had been eight months in her, and that's long enough to be in one craft. I'd like to see the——hooker that would keepmea year."

The speaker prefixed to the word hooker a sanguinary adjective, which is not applicable to ships except after a hard-fought action.

"Do you expect to stay out the voyage in that hooker?" inquired the beach-comber.

"Yes," said I, "I think I shall. I've been well used so far, and have nothing to complain of. I don't see any reason to leave the ship, with the chance of getting into a worse one."

"Ah, my lad, you're green yet. Wait awhile till you've seen more service, and you'll get tired of staying so long in one craft. I say, shift about and go by the cruise. Six months is plenty long enough in one hooker."

Some of the green hands were swallowing this kind of poison by wholesale; each one listening to a yarn of how the narrator had humbugged a shipping master, or bullied an American "counsle," or knocked over an officer of a ship in the discharge of his duty. The pleasures of a drunken spree and row with the police of a foreign port were duly set forth, and the peculiar delights of life in a calaboose depicted in glowing colors. But this species of conversation flagged after a time. The Mandarins boasted no musical instrument; but that curse and abomination of the forecastle, a greasy pack of cards, was produced, and furnished pastime for a small knot in one corner for a short time.

Dan and "Shorty," the two "voyagers," brought up from the depths of their chests some canes, busks, and other fancy articles or "scrimshonting," as it istermed by whalers, ingeniously fabricated from whales' teeth and jaw bones, some of which they were willing to exchange for tobacco, the principal necessary of life among seamen on long voyages, and their universal circulating medium and standard of value. An article of traffic at sea, instead of being estimated at so many dollars and cents, is rated at so many pounds of tobacco; a thing which is nearly worthless is "not worth a chaw of tobacco;" a disputed question is generally settled by betting a certain quantity of tobacco, and a notorious romancer is often interrupted in the midst of a thrilling story, with the inquiry, "How much tobacco have you got?" meaning, "How much can you give us to believe it? We'll believe anything, if you've got tobacco enough to put it through."

And yet, through all the rough entertainment there shone a vein of politeness and deference to their guests, a certain delicacy which never deserts the sailor, and which might be studied with profit by many accustomed to the most courtly circles. A man who should overstep certain bounds in his intercourse with visitors from a strange ship, or be guilty of the slightest breach of a certain etiquette, not defined by Chesterfield's laws, but natural and of spontaneous growth, as it were, would be taken to task unmercifully by his shipmates; and slights which would pass current in a fashionable evening party, with both nobs and snobs, would never be overlooked in a whalemen's "gam."

A song was called for by somebody; the motionwas seconded and carried,nem. con.; cards were thrown aside, "scrimshonting" articles returned to their depositories; and after some little clamor, it was decided that "Old Scotty," a tall, sunburned salt, who had served, according to his own statement, in one of the maintops of his most nautical majesty William the Fourth, should open the musical programme with that delectable chorus, "The stormy winds how they blow, blow, blow," which he executed after the most approved and orthodox style, rolling up the whites of his eyes at the carlines overhead, as though he expected that the roaring chorus in which all lands joined, would lift the deck off, and afford him a view of the heavens. A burst of applause followed the last verse, which I must confess I construed to be a manifestation of joy that it was finished, and of gratitude that there was no more of it to be endured. The Arethusas were now called upon to respond, and after some comparing of notes and prompting each other, Farrell struck up the time-honored confession of the misguided Irish youth who committed matrimony at the tender age of sixteen, and "died forlorn on Steven's Green," and afterwards wrote his autobiography in common metre, his last earthly request being that his pall might be borne by six disconsolate young ladies, all dressed in white gowns and pink ribbons. This song is a stock article with Irish and seamen, for what reason it would be hard to tell. A stout, jolly-looking Mandarin next electrified the auditors with the sentimental refrain of "O no, we never mention her!" with original quaversand variations, chanted in a voice of thunder; and was followed by Old Scotty, who rolled his eyes higher than ever as he poured himself out in a heartrending ballad, describing the fate of a certain Miss Caroline of Edinboro town, who at an untimely age "shuffled off this mortal coil," and "plunged her body down," after giving preciselythreeshrieks for Henry, neither more nor less. This pathetic outbreak again brought up the Arethusas in force, and the entertainment was sustained with great vigor on both sides, the songs being of various descriptions, and some, like newspaper novelettes, broken off in the middle of a verse, "to be continued hereafter." Some of the volunteer performers would have passed for good singers where tunes were not in fashion, while others, if they had fitted all the snatches together into one, might have furnished a medley of a highly original character. The veritable history of that unfortunate mariner, William Taylor, who was sent to his last account by the contents of a brace of pistols in the hands of his slighted "ladie love," having been caughtin flagrante delicto, basking in the smiles of another fair one, was interrupted at a most thrilling crisis by the cry of "Brace forward the mainyard!" for the Arethusa had forged considerably ahead, while both ships were lying aback. It took some time to do this, as by a singular fatality, nobody had a watch on deck; all the men who should by any possibility have had one had gone gamming. Thedenouementof the fickle Taylor's story was lost, as the helm required the singer's services.

The last act of the evening partook much of thenature of the first, being filled with marvellous tales of exploits, and "moving accidents by flood," and comparison of notes touching the respective merits of ships, captains and officers. The cry of "Haul aback" cut short several half-finished stories, and brought everybody on deck to look at the Arethusa, now running to leeward with a light set as a signal of recall for her mate and boat's crew. A murmur of admiration went round among us, at the appearance of the crack ship looming in the clear moonlight, as, having assumed the lee position, she rounded gracefully to again, when the boat was cleared away and manned, with hearty farewells on both sides.

"Good-night, Joy," said Father Grafton, as he descended the man-ropes. "Short passage home to you. Deliver my letter yourself when you get there."

"Ay, ay," returned the Mandarin's mate. "Greasy luck to you!"

"Thank you," said Grafton. "A large whale for you to-morrow," with the additional reservation, "and two forus. Let go the warp! out oars—pull ahead!"

We arrived on board our own ship to find a scene similar to that we had just left. Some of the Mandarins had found a congenial spirit in the sea-lawyer Burley, and others had fulfilled their mission by "bumming" considerable quantities of tobacco and literature from the younger lads. Manoel and Antone had monopolized a Portuguese boatsteerer, and formed a trio aside for a conference highly interesting to themselves and possessing the additional merit of being unintelligible to all the rest.

The Mandarin having run to leeward in her turn, the word was passed to "man the boat;" and, for a wonder, they waited alongside only three quarters of an hour. But Captain Barney was an uncommonly prompt man in his movements; the usual standard in such cases being one hour and a quarter.

In a few minutes, the rusty-looking ship was off on her northerly course for "home, sweet home," bearing messages to gladden the hearts of many interested in the fate of those on board her late consort, who was again standing by the wind to the southward.

The first inoculation of what may be designated "salt poison" had taken effect among our crew, and much mischief had been done by this apparently harmless visit. Those who had hitherto been cheerful and satisfied with all around them, now began to discover flaws and defects, viewing things and actions through new and distorted lenses; instituting parallels between the methods of doing the most trifling duties on board different vessels, and discoursing nautical wisdom at second hand with all the gravity and dogmatism of experienced tars. Truly may it be said in connection that "comparisons are odious."

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