Chapter 58 - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea by Mayne Reid
Very like a Whale
Though the birds by their flight had dissolved one half of the speculative theory which the crew of the Catamaran had constructed, the other half still held good. The island was still there, before their eyes; though completely divested of its inhabitants,—whose sudden eviction had cost only a single shout!
The flag was still waving over it; though, to all appearance, there was not a creature on shore that might feel pride in saluting that solitary standard!
There could be no one; else why should the birds have tarried so long undisturbed, to be scared at last by the mere sound of human voices?
Since there was nobody on the island, there was no need to observe further caution in approaching it,—except so far as regarded the conduct of their craft; and in the belief that they were about to set foot upon the shores of a desert isle, the sailor and Snowball, with little William assisting them, now went to work with the oars and hastened their approach to the land.
Partly impelled by the breeze, and partly by the strength of the rowers, the Catamaran moved, briskly through the water; and, before many minutes had elapsed, the craft was within a few hundred fathoms of the mysterious island, and still gliding nearer to it. This proximity,—along with the fact that the morning mist had meanwhile been gradually becoming dispelled by the rays of the rising sun,—enabled her crew to obtain a clearer view of the object before them; and Ben Brace, suspending his exertions at the oar, once more slewed himself round to have a fresh look at the supposed land.
“Land!” he exclaimed, as soon as his eyes again rested upon it. “A island, indeed! Shiver my timbers if ’t be a island after all! That be no land,—ne’er a bit o’t. It look like a rock, too; but there be something else it look liker; an’ that be a whale. ’Tis wery like a whale!”
“Berry,—berry like a whale!” echoed Snowball, not too well satisfied at discovering the resemblance.
“It be a whale!” pronounced the sailor, in a tone of emphatic confidence,—“a whale, an’ nothin’ else. Ay,” he continued speaking, as if some new light had broken upon him, “I see it all now. It be one o’ the great spermaceti whales. I wonder I didn’t think o’t afore. It’s been killed by some whaling-vessel; and the flag you see on its back’s neyther more nor less than one o’ their whifts. They’ve stuck it there, so as they might be able to find the sparmacety when they come back. Marcy heaven! I hope they will come back.”
As Ben finished this explanatory harangue, he started into an erect attitude, and placed himself on the highest part of the Catamaran’s deck,—his eyes no longer bent upon the whale, but, with greedy glances, sweeping the sea around it.
The object of this renewed reconnoissance may be understood from the words to which he had given utterance,—the hope expressed at the termination of his speech. The whale must have been killed, as he had said. He was looking for the whaler.
For full ten minutes he continued his optical search over the sea,—until not a fathom of the surface had escaped his scrutiny.
At first his glances had expressed almost a confident hope; and, observing them, the others became excited to a high degree of joy.
Gradually, however, the old shadow returned over the sailor’s countenance, and was instantly transferred to the faces of his companions.
The sea,—as far as his eye could command a view of it,—showed neither sail, nor any other object. Its shining surface was absolutely without a speck.
With a disappointed air, the captain of the Catamaran descended from his post of observation; and once more turned his attention to the dead cachalot from which they were now separated by less than a hundred fathoms,—a distance that was constantly decreasing, as the raft, under sail, continued to drift nearer.
The body of the whale did not appear anything like as large as when first seen. The mist was no longer producing its magnifying effect upon the vision of our adventurers; but although the carcass of the cachalot could no more have been mistaken for an island, still was it an object of enormous dimensions; and might easily have passed for a great black rock standing several fathoms above the surface of the sea. It was over twenty yards in length; and, seen sideways from the raft, of course appeared much longer.
In five minutes after, they were close up to the dead whale; and, the sail being lowered, the raft was brought to. Ben threw a rope around one of the pectoral fins; and, after making it fast, the Catamaran lay moored alongside the cachalot, like some diminutive tender attached to a huge ship of war! There were several reasons why Ben Brace should mount up to the summit of that mountain of whalebone and blubber; and, as soon as the raft had been safely secured, he essayed the ascent.
It was not such a trifling feat,—this climbing upon the carcass of the dead whale. Nor was it to be done without danger. The slippery epidermis of the huge leviathan,—lubricated as it was with that unctuous fluid which the skin of the sperm-whale is known to secrete,—rendered footing upon it extremely insecure.
It might be fancied no great matter for a swimmer like Ben Braco to slide off: since a fall of a few feet into the water could not cause him any great bodily hurt. But when the individual forming this fancy has been told that there was something like a score of sharks prowling around the carcass, he will obtain a more definite idea of the danger to which such a fall would have submitted the adventurous seaman.
Ben Brace was the last man to be cowed by a trifling danger, or even one of magnitude; and partly by Snowball’s assistance, and using the pectoral flipper to which the raft was attached as a stirrup, he succeeded in mounting upon the back of the defunct monster of the deep.
As soon as he had steadied himself in his new position, a piece of rope was thrown up to him,—by which Snowball was himself hoisted to the shoulders of the cachalot; and then the two seamen proceeded towards the tail,—or, as the sailor pronounced it, the “starn” of this peculiar craft.
A little aft of “midships” a pyramidal lump of fatty substance projected several feet above the line of the vertebras. It was the spurious or rudimentary dorsal fin, with which the sperm-whale is provided.
On arriving at this protuberance,—which chanced to be the highest point on the carcass where the flag was elevated on its slender shaft,—both came to a halt; and there stood together, gazing around them over the glittering surface of the sunlit sea.