although it would be quite unfair to imagine from the immense activity prevailing in the ship during the cutting-in that pepe was neglected, it is certain that according to a very well understood and constantly acted upon rule in south sea whalers, work connected with whaling takes precedence of everything else. nothing is allowed to interfere with it as long as it is humanly possible to carry it on. remembering the quite scanty rewards to be obtained on an average by the most ardent and successful whalemen, the absolute impossibility of any supervision by the owners for three or four years at a time, it is, i think, little short of marvellous to note the extraordinary energy and perseverance manifested by these men, of whatever grade above that of seaman, in the chief business of the voyage.
physical injury, lack of rest, incredible toil, privation suffered are all made light of in the chase, capture, and disposal of the whale. charges are often brought against the leaders of gross inhumanity to the men working under them in the absence of full restraint; but as far as that cruelty consists in overwork, or work under desperate conditions, i bear witness that if the sailor or foremost hand is not spared, neither do those who drive him spare themselves. the voluntary work that i have seen some of these men perform would be taken as[pg 151] incredible if i were to relate it, and i therefore shrink from giving instances. besides, to the majority of those whom i hope will read this book, the whole business would be unintelligible because entirely out of the purview of a serene and quietly ordered life.
this terribly energetic method of working was a most severe lesson to c. b., hard to learn, harder still to understand. for in the gentle life of the islanders, though great efforts were sometimes necessary in an emergency, as we have seen, they had no ideas of hard work as a habit, for the love of working hard, or for the greed of gain. they were as far removed from being ascetics as they were from being hypocrites. they loved their simple pleasures and heartily gave thanks to god for them, and they could not understand why any sane person should misuse his body in order to get more than somebody else had—the last condition being an unthinkable one to them where everything was held in common. but it had not taken c. b. long to discover that in the new world of which he was now a denizen, might and endurance, as well as ability to get and keep, were the objects of praise and almost worship. that men were held in esteem, not for what they were, but for what they had, and that the easiest sneer to their lips was that a priest, a parson, or a religious man of any kind was an individual who had found that the easiest way of getting a living without work was gaining a hold over the minds of your hard-working fellows by pretending that you were in touch with the unseen world.
so he had early come to the conclusion that he must prove his manhood by his eagerness to work, his indifference to fatigue, and his ability to do all[pg 152] that was required of him, as well as by his passive obedience to all the loving precepts of the gospel. and this kept him going sometimes when he would fain have sunk down with fatigue, a generous pride and belief in god’s sustaining power as being certainly no less able to uphold the christian than the mysterious force that kept merritt, the man of no beliefs and strangest origin, going apparently with ease when everybody else was sinking with fatigue. nobly he sustained his part, and nobody suspected how near he was several times to giving up and declaring that whatever happened he could work no more without rest.
this present business was really the severest he had gone through, because his successful effort to save pepe was made under the most trying conditions, every ounce of his great strength as well as his endurance of privation of air had been put forth, and then as soon as the ship was reached work harder than ever had to be engaged in. consequently as soon as the last case had been strung up alongside by the two main tackles and the business of baling it out had commenced he was most thankful to hear the skipper say—
“now, i’ll watch these fellows baling the case, an’ all the rest of ye scoot, get a good skin full of grub and a rest. we’ll set blubber watches at eight bells” (eight o’clock p.m.).
as they stepped away from the waist, with all its débris of quaint fragments of blubber and bone, and the swish, swish of oil surging from side to side of the deck, merritt said to our friend—
“christmas, me boy, i ain’t too sorry to knock off for an hour or two. i believe i’m getting old; can’t work day in and day out ’thout wantin’ a rest same as i used to.”
[pg 153]
c. b. replied simply—
“i thought you could hardly be made of ordinary flesh and blood. you seem to work like a machine and never to think of rest, while i often find myself wondering how much longer i can hold out.”
“ah, me boy,” responded merritt, laying his hand most affectionately on c. b.’s arm, “you forget the differences between our ages. you’re only a boy just done growin’, ’bout twenty-two ain’t ye? while i—well i don’t quite know how old i am, but i guess about thirty-five, have got all my gristle hardened into man, and can plug along ’thout showin’ it. but you shape better than any youngster i ever see.”
as merritt finished speaking, c. b. suddenly bethought him of pepe, lying aft there in miserable pain, and slipped along to his side. finding the wounded man awake he dropped one knee beside him, saying—
“how is it, pepe? can i do anything for you, get a pipe, a drink, or move you?”
pepe looked up at the fine eager face, and moistened his lips twice or thrice before he replied with another question: “what made ye save me? if i’d been in your place, i’d let ye die, an’ glad o’ the chance. an’ i’d be best pleased if you’d let me go when i was three parts gone. i don’t want t’ live cos you’ve beat me, you an’ yer chinaman. go away; i hate ye, an’ if i could i’d kill ye now. what did ye ever come aboard this ship for? ye’ve made a hell of her for better men than you are.”
c. b. knew better than to stay and talk to a man in that frame of mind, a man too who, for all he knew, might be raving in delirium; but he thought with some consolation of certain unclean spirits of old who cried to the healing lord, “art thou come to[pg 154] torment us before our time?” and turned away to his berth below, where he found a good and ample meal awaiting him. he ate and drank reverently, gratefully, and then, greatly refreshed, lay down in his bunk and went fast asleep almost on the instant, having not a single care of his own. and, as it happened that he was not in the first watch, it was 2 a.m. before he was called, and then he sprang to his feet at the word full of life and energy.
when he rushed on deck he found the machinery of oil-boiling in full blast, the caldrons bubbling fiercely, the square iron funnels of the try-works blazing like the squat chimneys of an iron foundry, and the clatter of the mincing machine incessant. he had little imagination or he would have thought what a picture she made, this tiny hive of human energy with all her toilers, in the midst of that immense stretch of lonely ocean, engaged in converting to human use the treasure of the boundless deep ravished from its mightiest denizen. but he only saw a little group of almost dead-beat men who had been working mechanically for hours, only thought pityingly of the ill-requited toil and what he considered to be the folly of it all.
then he plunged into the work himself, while the second and fourth mates prowled about the decks, keeping a vigilant eye upon possible shirkers, seeing the great casks rolled away from the cooler as the cooked oil was poured into them and they brimmed over. in fact the ship was now just a floating factory from which, except to an observant onlooker if such there had been, all romance had departed to make way for the greasy heavy toil. no lookout was kept, no hand at the wheel, which was lashed hard a lee; for, in case any other ship should be wandering that way, the trying-out whaler was a[pg 155] beacon in herself, visible for many miles. she certainly could not run another ship down, and any one who run her down could be little less than a criminal lunatic, at least quite unfit to have charge of a ship.
so the heavy round of work went on without intermission until, about 4.30, the darkest hour before the dawn, all hands on deck were startled beyond measure by hearing a high clear voice crying—
“ship ahoy! what ship is that? do you need any assistance?” all eyes were turned in the direction of the hail, and there close by them rode a ship of war, her side crowded with men plainly visible in the blue flare she was burning, but looking all corpse-like in that unnatural light.
loud and clear came the response from aft, for captain taber seemed to be always on hand when wanted: “ship eliza adams of new bedford, whaling, now engaged in trying out.”
“thank you,” came the somewhat dissatisfied answer across. “i thought you were on fire. good-night and good luck. go ahead, please; forty revolutions, course s.80.w.”
it was only one of the police of the seas, a british man-o’-war attached to the south american squadron; but as she did not leave her name or destination no one on board could guess who she was. captain taber said sardonically, “that’s a johnny haul taut, i bet; thinks he owns the show. but i guess he’s ben sold a pup this watch. wonder what sort of guff he’ll enter up in his log about this.” it was not generous, but characteristic of american captains in discussing british seamen and their seamanship, and we can hardly quarrel or bother with it to any good purpose. but what was entered in the log was just this—
[pg 156]
“saw a glare to the eastward, looking like a ship on fire, altered course at 3.55 a.m. to e.n.e. and ran down at full speed, twelve knots. discovered the glare to be the whaleship eliza adams of new bedford trying out a whale. resumed course immediately, s.80.w., forty revolutions. weather as before.”
by the next day at noon the deck was clear of all the filth, and the factory-like work was proceeding with machine-like regularity, all hands being now well rested. and as cask after cask was filled at the cooler and rolled away to a secure temporary berth on deck, the captain was heard to say something to this effect: “i thought so. i guessed that whale to be about the biggest in all my experience, an’ now i’m gettin’ to be sure of it. never saw a bigger whale nor yet richer blubber.” by which he meant that the blubber was so full of oil that when cut the clear fluid gushed almost like water and besides it was full of cysts, small cells of about the size of peas, which were filled with a bland substance of the consistency of cream, probably almost pure spermaceti.
for although the great reservoir of spermaceti is in the head, in this case yielding nearly fifty barrels or five tons of almost pure spermaceti, this curious substance is found in the oil from any part of the body, particularly the great dorsal hump. why the head should have so huge a quantity of this fluid contained in it is a mystery, the only supposition concerning its use being that its very low specific gravity brings the vast mass much more quickly to the surface than would otherwise be the case, and brings it up too in such a position that the spiracle or blow-hole is the first portion of the whale to break water. this substance has nothing in it[pg 157] of the nature of brain matter—the brains are quite small in proportion to the size of the creature—but it has been held, in view of the high intelligence shown by the whales and seals, all of which are noted for their apparent paucity of brain, that this thought or intelligence matter is distributed over the different nerve centres, or to put it more colloquially, the creature has, like the telephone system in a large town, several local exchanges, as well as one central exchange for the transaction of general business.
and in the same way it has been supposed that the whales, huge as they are, cannot possibly contain sufficient air for the needs of the creatures during the prolonged period—often nearly an hour—during which they remain under water, since they have no other means of aerating the blood whatever. so it has been assumed that in some mysterious way the vital principle of the air, oxygen, is in some way secreted during the period that the whale is on the surface, a supposition which is somewhat supported by the fact that the whale upon coming to the surface must make so many respirations, always the same in number, before he can seek the depths again, which would point to some process going on in addition to ordinary breathing. also it would certainly be impossible for him to sink if he inflated himself, as it were, by shipping a great reservoir full of air.
but this is probably enough of whale anatomy for one chapter, so i will leave the subject for a while, merely recording that the captain’s most sanguine expectations were fulfilled, the whale yielding one hundred and sixty barrels or sixteen tons of oil and spermaceti, which at the then high market-price of the day, £108 per ton, made the handsome sum of over seventeen hundred pounds[pg 158] for less than a week’s work. of course the long spells of inaction and the heavy outlay as well as upkeep must be borne in mind, and i do not suggest that the great game was ever in the nature of a gold mine, only that when a monster like the one we have just tried out was obtained he made a very considerable addition to the profits of the voyage.
all the oil having been run down, and the lavish application of lye and sand to the decks and paintwork having made the ship look her usual smart self, the monotonous old routine began again, but for our hero at least its monotony was a thing of the past. for one thing he began on his bundle of books, only reading a very little at a time at first, but gradually getting absorbed in them and reading on to the great loss of his sleep. but oh, to be able to read like him, to drink with an entirely unsophisticated thirst at the fountain of good literature believing every word as if it were directly inspired! of course he read his bible as he had always done, from a genuine love of it and a full appreciation of its living histories, not at all as a religious duty, but as with his wonderful memory he knew it nearly all by heart, it was entirely delightful to him to get hold of something fresh.
at last his chief, merritt, said to him one night, with just the slightest shade of grievance in his voice, “’pears to me you’re mighty busy these days, too busy to have a yam even. what ’yer doin’ anyhow with yer nose in a book all the time?”
for a moment the idea of the extremely taciturn merritt wanting a yam almost made c. b. smile, but he suppressed the impulse and replied apologetically—
“i’m afraid i’ve been a bit selfish of late, but the fact is i’ve just found my way into a new world. i[pg 159] never knew how much there was in books before, and i forget everything else but the people that seem to be all alive before me, doing and saying things that i never dreamed of before. you see, i’ve missed very much the long talks and pleasant society that i’ve been used to all my life till i came here, for no one here seemed to care about anything that i like, and i can’t listen to their yarns at all: they’re all dreadful to me because of the bad language.”
merritt looked at him keenly for the space of a minute, and then said as if thinking aloud, “i wonder what pepe thinks of ye now since you saved his life. don’t seem overnabove thankful ’s far ’s i can see. spoke t’ him yet?”
c. b. flushed dark red as he replied, “yes, i asked him the next day if i could do anything for him, and i found him as bitter as ever. he knows all about the business—how, i don’t know, but he does—and he seems to hate me worse for it. what it means i don’t understand, but i can’t alter it, and so i must let him go his own way.”
“i know,” grunted merritt; “he’s a bad man, eaten up with jealousy of you. if you’d a ben a no ’count greenie that couldn’t keep your end up, an’ had to knuckle down to him in the half deck same as his other cronies do or did, you wouldn’t had no trouble with him. i got no use for men like him except to make oil, for he’s a pretty fair average whaleman—i’m not denying that.
“but what i like about you is that you’re not only a good whaleman, but you’re a good man. an’ now i want to tell you somethin’. i ben achin’ to get it off my chest for a long time past, ever since i took such a shine t’ ye at the first lowerin’. i told yer i had a chum once, didn’t i? yes; well, i[pg 160] picked him up on the beach at the bay of islands. he’d swum ashore from the guidin’ light, a whaleship that had the reputation in her day of being the worst of all the bad ships that ever went a spoutin’. he was pretty desperate, but he knew enough not to try and skip while she was anchor: the standin’ twenty dollars reward would ha’ put every maori in the neighbourhood on his track in a fluke-twist. so he waited till she was under weigh, and then when she was well off the heads he slipped down a rope and put for shore.
“well, he’d fetched round to russell, an’, mind i’m telling ye, they were pretty hard crowd there those days, so if a poor devil had no money he stood a gaudy chance of starvin’. well, i was in a good homely ship, the mornin’ star, the skipper’s boat-header at that, an’ we come into the bay of islan’s to wood and water up an’ give liberty as usual. i come ashore with the skipper as soon as the kellick was down, and while he was up at the store i strolled along the beach an’ i finds dick, the chap i’m talkin’ about, lyin’ on the sand half dead. i gives him a kick just to let him know he was liable for a sunstroke, and he gets up halfway and looks at me just like a dog i had once. that was enough for me. i gets him up, takes him to old rowsell’s store, and fills him full of good grub an’ beer, and then when the skipper come along i puts in a word fer him an’ he’s taken aboard.
“we happened to be a couple of hands short, so the old man wasn’t sorry to have him, and i—well, i don’t know what it could ha’ been, but i got so fond of that fellow you can’t think. when he got into decent rig, and had two or three square meals, he was a different chap, quite handsome and a regular jim dandy. he was a white man too, some sort of[pg 161] an englishman i guess, an’ he could talk like a hull box o’ books. we was only about nine months out from new bedford when he came aboard, an’ before another three months he’d so twisted himself around me, one that had never had a pet before since i first knew myself, that i’d ha’ died for him. he was after oarsman in my boat an’ smart too, but, though i wouldn’t see it then, he was a coward an’ a sneak of the worst kind. i was in hot water the whole time takin’ his part, for he was always in rows, an’ used to run to me like a kid. i think i liked him all the more for that, an’ beside a row has always ben a sort o’ tonic to me.
“looking back now i can’t understand the hold that fellow had over me, for he was always playing some dirty trick or another, not on me, but other fellows, an’ i had to get him out o’ them. an’ if ever i went for him real angry, he could always salve me over in a few minutes with that soapy tongue of his. at last i found him out. we went into callao, an’ it was the days when shanghaiing was carried on wuss there than anywhere else. no one was allowed out of the ship except on such business as takin’ the skipper ashore, an’ then we was forbid to leave the boat. but he had ben there before, an’ knew buck murphy, the big shanghai boss, who used ter come down on the quay an’ yam with him very quiet. one afternoon while we was waitin’ for the skipper, dick persuades me to come up to a house not above two ships’ lengths away an’ have a drink with him, bringin’ two hands out of the boat with us and leavin’ a kanaka in charge. it was only to be for a minute.
“even t’ this day i don’t know what made me go. i knew better, o’ course, an’ i never did care much fer drink anyway. but that fellow could make me[pg 162] do anythin’ he liked, i believe, an’, so i went, like a silly goat as i was. i smelt somehow that all wasn’t right when i got in, for there was as tough a lookin’ crowd as ever i see sittin’ about, an’ half of ’em looked ready to begin on anybody they didn’t sorter just cotton to. but i had my drink, three fingers of aguardiente, an’ so did the two chaps as was with us, two yanks they was. just as i puts my glass down i sees dick lookin’ at me curious, an’ in that moment i knew that he had sold me. i never want to feel like that again. the bottom seemed to have fell out of everything. i jumped up, knockin’ the big table over; i heard an’ awful crashin’ an’ bangin’ an’, then nothin’.
“when i came to agen i was bein’ hauled along a deck by the neck, an’ i was feelin’ wuss nor ever i had felt in my life. i heard somebody yell ‘up with ye, dirt; an’ loose that maintgallant s’l,’ an’ i started, the sailor in me, i s’pose. but as i got on the sheer pole i looked around, for my head was gettin’ clearer, and there, not more’n a mile away was the mornin’ star at anchor, an’ we flyin’ past her at the rate o’ knots before a fresh breeze under topsails fore and aft. just one look was enough for me. i slued round and dived, comin’ up headin’ straight for the ole ship. and the skunk in charge o’ that hooker that i’d ben shanghaied into stood on his poop an’ took pot shots at me from a winchester as long as he could see me. but he dassent heave to where he was ’n i played the ole islan’ game on him, boy, long swim under water, bob up an’ a guts full of air, then down agen. why, i’d run the blockade of forty ships if only the water was rough enough.
“presently the old man sees me, he’d ben disturbed by the noise o’ the shootin’, an’, as he [pg 163]afterwards told me, he ups with his glass an’ makes out who it was. an’ then he was that excited he couldn’t keep still; but he had too much savvy to lower a boat until the ship that i’d jumped from was outer gunshot. then they come an’ picked me up. i was feelin’ real good, for that swim had put new life inter me. when i got aboard the ole man was that delighted t’ see me i thought he’d a cried, an’ i was some glad t’ get back. i told him all i knew, an’ he says, ‘why that chum o’ yours is wuss an’ what even i thought him, an’ you know i never did like him. he got down inter my cabin that day somehow and stole about two hundred dollars in money an’ some bits o’ julery as i prized, an’ i hain’t heard nothin’ of him since.’
“i didn’t say nothin’, i couldn’t, but i reckoned that if ever i met mr. dick agen, no matter where or how, it’d be his last meetin’ with anybody.
“i went an’ had a good sleep an’ a feed, an’ that night as soon as it was dark i goes t’ the skipper an’ says i: ‘i’m goin’ ashore, sir, with your permission, but i don’t want no boat, i’ll swim.’ he knew me an’ he says, ‘well, if you must you must. but i don’t want t’ lose ye, try an’ get back agen.’ an’ i says, ‘you bet i’ll be back before mornin’.’ so i puts my ole bowie in my belt, slips down over the side, an’ puts for the shore. it was only a couple o’ miles off, so i was as fresh as paint when i lands, an’ then i starts off on my search. i knew, of course, that my joker calc’lated on me bein’ a good many miles away by this time, so i didn’t dodge about, i went straight to the rum mill he’d lured me to. an’ when i shoved open the door, there he is, a settin’ with a big drink afore him, and buck murphy with two other boys o’ the same class sittin’ around with cards in their hands. they were playin’ bluff.
[pg 164]
“i wasn’t: i made one jump at him like a cougar. i knew i could a had him out o’ the middle of a regiment of soldiers, an’ as i went i knocked the kerosine lamp over that was on the table so that the only light that there was came from the burnin’ ile lappin’ around the wooden shanty. i got him by the neck, with my left hand. with the other i pulls my knife an’ as i choked him i felt for anythin’ touchin’ me an’ cut at it. the flame burst up high an’ showed me the rest o’ the crowd clearin’, so i pulls up quickly an’ has a good look at him. i thought he was dead, but i makes sure an’ then has a peep round. an’ in the corner of the room i sees a big hole. bein’ as clear in my mind as i am now i makes a breach for it, guessin’ what it was, drops through it an’ finds myself in the harbour which was all right.
“so i takes a little journey, lands and get my bearin’s on, then paddles off quietly to the ship feelin’ quite easy in my mind. i got aboard agen at midnight, and was very near shot by the mate who, seein’ me climb inboard in the dark, thought i was some pirate or another. i jollied him a bit about his shootin’, not much, because i ain’t big on the shoot myself, then turned in, tellin’ him i’d give the cuffer t’ the skipper in the mornin’.
“i was middlin’ tired, an’ i had to be called at two bells, an’ as soon as i come on deck the ole man says, ‘so you got back all right, merritt?’ ‘yes, sir,’ i says, ‘an’ i’ve squared the account. mister dick won’t sell any more men, his pleasant little game is stopped for a full due.’ ‘why, you surely didn’t kill him, did you, merritt?’ says he, holdin’ up both han’s as if he was scared like. ‘well, if i didn’t,’ says i, ‘it’s a funny thing to me. but i don’t think there’s much doubt about it;’ an’ i went on to give him the story. would you believe it, he looked at me as if i[pg 165] hurt his eyesight, an’ from that out i don’t think he really ever liked me. some men is like that, ye know. they know you’ve done the right thing, yet they hate ye for doin’ it. but that didn’t trouble me any.”
all through the long recital c. b. had listened with mingled feelings of admiration and horror, and when merritt had finished he held out his hand and said—
“mr. merritt, i feel that your deed was terrible, but i can’t find it in my heart to blame you, except that you acted in revenge. but that man was a danger and needed killing, i know, and i feel that you were only the instrument in doing a necessary work. i couldn’t think any less of you, for i believe you acted according to the light you had, and anyhow i love and admire you.”
