Chapter 62 - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea by Mayne Reid
A dangerous Equilibrium
Ben had taken along with him the axe; and, proceeding towards one of the harpoons,—still buried in the body of the whale,—he commenced cutting it out.
In a few moments a deep cavity was hewn out around the shank of the harpoon; which was further deepened, until the barbed blade was wellnigh laid bare. Snowball, impatiently seizing the stout wooden shaft, gave it a herculean pluck, that completely detached the arrow from the soft blubber in which it had been imbedded.
Unfortunately for Snowball, he had not well calculated the strength required for clearing that harpoon. Having already made several fruitless attempts to extract it, he did not expect it to draw out so easily; and, in consequence of his making an over-effort, his balance became deranged; his feet, ill-planted upon the slippery skin, flew simultaneously from beneath him; and he came down upon the side of the leviathan with a loud “slap,”—similar to what might have been heard had he fallen upon half-thawed ice.
Unpleasant as this mishap may have been, it was not the worst that might have befallen him on that occasion. Nor was it the fall itself that caused him to “sing out” at the top of his voice, and in accents betokening a terrible alarm.
What produced this manifestation was a peril of far more fearful kind, which at the moment menaced him.
The spot where the harpoon had been sticking was in the side of the cachalot, and, as the carcass lay, a broad space around the weapon presented an inclined plane, sloping abruptly towards the water. Lubricated as it was with the secreted oil of the animal, it was smooth as glass. Upon this slope Snowball had been standing; and upon it had he fallen.
But the impetus of the fall not only hindered him from lying where he had gone down, but also from being able to get up again; and, instead of doing either one or the other, he commenced sliding down the slippery surface of the leviathan’s body, where it shelved towards the water.
Good heavens! what was to become of him? A score of sharks were just below,—waiting for him with hungry jaws, and eyes glancing greedily upward. Seeing the two men mounted upon the carcass of the whale, and one wielding an axe, they had gathered upon that side,—in the belief that the flensing was about to begin!
It was a slight circumstance that saved the sea-cook from being eaten up,—not only raw, but alive. Simply the circumstance of his having held on to the harpoon. Had he dropped that weapon on falling, it would never have been grasped by him again. Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to hold on to it; or perhaps the tenacity was merely mechanical. Whatever may have been the reason, he did hold on. Fortunately, also, he was gliding down on the side opposite to that on which floated the “drogue.”
These two circumstances saved him.
When about half-way to the water,—and still sliding rapidly downwards,—his progress was suddenly arrested, or rather impeded,—for he was not altogether brought to a stop,—by a circumstance as unexpected as it was fortunate. That was the tightening of the line attached to the handle of the harpoon. He had slidden to the end of his tether,—the other end of which was fast to the drogue drifting about in the sea, as already said, on the opposite side of the carcass.
Heavy as was the piece of wood,—and offering, as it did, a considerable amount of resistance in being dragged through the water,—it would not have been sufficient to sustain the huge body of the Coromantee. It only checked the rapidity of his descent; and in the end he would have gone down into the sea,—and shortly after into the stomachs of, perhaps, half a score of sharks,—but for the opportune interference of the ex-man-o’-war’s-man; who, just in the nick of time,—at the very moment when Snowball’s toes were within six inches of the water’s edge, caught hold of the cord and arrested his farther descent.
But although the sailor had been able to accomplish this much, and was also able to keep Snowball from slipping farther down, he soon discovered that he was unable to pull him up again. It was just as much as his strength was equal to,—even when supplemented by the weight of the drogue,—to keep the sea-cook in the place where he had succeeded in checking him. There hung Snowball in suspense,—holding on to the slippery skin of the cachalot, literally “with tooth and toe-nail.”
Snowball saw that his position was perilous,—more than that: it was frightful. He could hear noises beneath him,—the rushing of the sharks through the water. He glanced apprehensively below. He could see their black triangular fins, and note the lurid gleaming of their eyeballs, as they rolled in their sunken sockets. It was a sight to terrify the stoutest heart; and that of Snowball did not escape being terrified.
“Hole on, Massa Brace!” he instinctively shouted. “Hole on, for de lub o’ God! Doan’t leab me slip an inch, or dese dam brute sure cotch hold ob me! Fo’ de lub o’ de great Gorramity, hole on!”
Ben needed not the stimulus of this pathetic appeal. He was holding on to the utmost of his strength. He could not have added another pound to the pull. He dared not even renew either his attitude, or the grip he had upon the rope. The slightest movement he might make would endanger the life of his black-skinned comrade.
A slackening of the cord, even to the extent of twelve inches, would have been fatal to the feet of Snowball—already within six of the surface of the water and the snouts of the sharks!
Perhaps never in all his checkered career had the life of the negro been suspended in such dangerous balance. The slightest circumstance would have disturbed the equilibrium,—an ounce would have turned the scale,—and delivered him into the jaws of death.
It is scarcely necessary to conjecture what would ultimately have been the end of this perilous adventure, had the sailor and sea-cook been permitted to terminate it between themselves. The strength of the former was each instant decreasing; while the weight of the latter,—now more feebly clinging to the slippery epidermis of the whale,—was in like proportion becoming greater.
With nothing to intervene, the result might be easily guessed. In figurative parlance Snowball must have “gone overboard.”
But his time was not yet come; and his comrade knew this, when a pair of hands,—small, but strong ones,—were seen grasping the cord, alongside of his own. They were the hands of Little Will’m!
At the earliest moment, after Snowball had slipped and fallen, the lad had perceived his peril; and “swarming” up by the flipper of the whale, had hurried to the assistance of Ben, laying hold of the rope,—not one second too soon.
It was soon enough, however, to save the suspended Coromantee; whose body, now yielding to the united strength of the two, was drawn up the slippery slope,—slowly, but surely,—until it rested upon the broad horizontal space around the summit of that mountain of bones and blubber.