The Greatest Sea Adventure Novels: 30+ Maritime Novels, Pirate Tales & Seafaring Stories. R. M. Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ sir, three points.”

      “How far?”

      “About two miles. Thar she blows!”

      “Call all hands,” shouted the captain.

      “Starboard watch, ahoy!” roared the mate, in that curious hoarse voice peculiar to boatswains of men-of-war. “Tumble up, lads, tumble up! Whale in sight! Bear a hand, my hearties!”

      The summons was almost unnecessary. The “starboard watch” was—with the exception of one or two uncommonly heavy sleepers—already on deck pulling on its ducks and buckling its belts.

      “Thar she breaches, thar she blows!” again came from the crow’s-nest in the voice of a Stentor.

      “Well done, Dick Barnes, you’re the first to raise the oil,” remarked one of the men, implying by the remark that the said Dick was fortunate enough to be the first to sight a whale.

      “Where away now?” roared the captain, who was in a state of intense excitement.

      “A mile an’ a half to leeward, sir.”

      “Clear away the boats,” shouted the captain.

      “Masthead, ahoy! D’ye see that whale now?”

      “Ay, ay, sir. Thar she blows!”

      “Bear a hand, my hearties,” cried the captain, as the men sprang to the boats which were swinging at the davits. “Get your tubs in! Clear your falls! Look alive, lads! Stand-by to lower! All ready?”

      “All ready, sir.”

      “Thar she blows!” came again from the masthead with redoubled energy. “Sperm-whales, sir; there’s a school of ’em.”

      “A school of them!” whispered Ailie, who had left her post at the mizzen-shrouds, and now stood by her father’s side, looking on at the sudden hubbub in unspeakable amazement. “Do whales go to school?” she said, laughing.

      “Out of the road, Ailie, my pet,” cried her father hastily. “You’ll get knocked over. Lower away, lads, lower away!”

      Down went the starboard, larboard, and waist-boats as if the falls had been cut, and almost before you could wink the men literally tumbled over the side into them, took their places, and seized their oars.

      “Here, Glynn, come with me, and I’ll show you a thing or two,” said the captain. “Jump in, lad; look sharp.”

      Glynn instantly followed his commander into the starboard boat, and took the aft oar. Tim Rokens, being the harpooner of that boat, sat at the bow oar with his harpoons and lances beside him, and the whale-line coiled in a tub in the boat’s head. The captain steered.

      And now commenced a race that taxed the boats’ crews to the utmost; for it is always a matter keenly contested by the different crews, who shall fix the first harpoon in the whale. The larboard boat was steered by Mr Millons, the first mate; the waist-boat by Mr Markham, the second mate—the latter an active man of about five-and-twenty, whose size and physical strength were herculean, and whose disposition was somewhat morose and gloomy.

      “Now, lads, give way! That’s it! that’s the way. Bend your backs, now! do bend your backs,” cried the captain, as the three boats sprang from the ship’s side and made towards the nearest whale, with the white foam curling at their bow.

      Several more whales appeared in sight spouting in all directions, and the men were wild with excitement.

      “That’s it! Go it lads!” shouted Mr Millons, as the waist-boat began to creep ahead. “Lay it on! give way! What d’ye say, boys; shall we beat ’em?”

      Captain Dunning stood in the stern-sheets of the starboard boat, almost dancing with excitement as he heard these words of encouragement.

      “Give way, boys!” he cried. “They can’t do it! That whale’s ours—so it is. Only bend your backs! A steady pull! Pull like steam-tugs! That’s it! Bend the oars! Double ’em up! Smash ’em in bits, do!”

      Without quite going the length of the captain’s last piece of advice, the men did their work nobly. They bent their strong backs with a will, and strained their sinewy arms to the utmost. Glynn, in particular, to whom the work was new, and therefore peculiarly exciting and interesting, almost tore the rowlocks out of the boat in his efforts to urge it on, and had the oar not been made of the toughest ash, there is no doubt that he would have obeyed the captain’s orders literally and have smashed it in bits.

      On they flew like racehorses. Now one boat gained an inch on the others, then it lost ground again as the crew of another put forth additional energy, and the three danced over the glassy sea as if the inanimate planks had been suddenly endued with life, and inspired with the spirit that stirred the men.

      A large sperm-whale lay about a quarter of a mile ahead, rolling lazily in the trough of the sea. Towards this the starboard boat now pulled with incredible speed, leaving the other two gradually astern. A number of whales rose in various directions. They had got into the midst of a shoal, or school of them, as the whale-men term it; and as several of these were nearer the other boats than the first whale was, they diverged towards them.

      “There go flukes,” cried Rokens, as the whale raised its huge tail in the air and “sounded”—in other words, dived. For a few minutes the men lay on their oars, uncertain in what direction the whale would come up again; but their doubts were speedily removed by its rising within a few yards of the boat.

      “Now, Rokens,” cried the captain; “now for it; give him the iron. Give way, lads; spring, boys. Softly now, softly.”

      In another instant the boat’s bow was on the whale’s head, and Rokens buried a harpoon deep in its side.

      “Stern all!” thundered the captain.

      The men obeyed, and the boat was backed off the whale just in time to escape the blow of its tremendous flukes as it dived into the sea, the blue depths of which were instantly dyed red with the blood that flowed in torrents from the wound.

      Down it went, carrying out the line at a rate that caused the chocks through which it passed to smoke. In a few minutes the line ceased to run out, and the whale returned to the surface. It had scarcely showed its nose, when the slack of the line was hauled in, and a second harpoon was fixed in its body.

      Infuriated with pain, the mighty fish gave vent to a roar like a bull, rolled half over, and lashed the sea with his flukes, till, all round for many yards, it was churned into red slimy foam. Then he turned round, and dashed off with the speed of a locomotive engine, tearing the boat through the waves behind it, the water curling up like a white wall round the bows.

      “She won’t stand that long,” muttered Glynn Proctor, as he rested on his oar, and looked over his shoulder at the straining line.

      “That she will, boy,” said the captain; “and more than that, if need be. You’ll not be long of havin’ a chance of greasin’ your fingers, I’ll warrant.”

      In a few minutes the speed began to slacken, and after a time they were able to haul in on the line. When the whale again came to the surface, a third harpoon was cleverly struck into it, and a spout of blood from its blow-hole showed СКАЧАТЬ