Chapter 99 - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea by Mayne Reid
A Whaler “Trying-Out”
In making the observations above detailed, the boy-sailor had been occupied scarce ten seconds of time,—only while his eye took in the singular spectacle thus abruptly brought before it. He did not stay to seek out of his own thoughts an answer to the question that suggested itself; but giving way to the terrified surprise which the apparition had caused him, he raised a shout which instantly awoke his companions.
Each of the three, on the instant of their awaking, gave utterance to a quick cry, but their shouts, although heard simultaneously, were significant of very different emotions. The cry of the girl was simply a scream, expressive of the wildest terror. That of Snowball was a confused mingling of surprise and alarm; while to the astonishment of William, and the other as well, the utterance of the sailor was a shout of unrestrained joy, accompanied by the action of suddenly springing to his feet,—so suddenly that the Catamaran was in danger of being capsized by the abrupt violence of the movement.
He did not give them time to ask for an explanation, but on the moment of getting himself into an erect attitude he commenced a series of shouts and exclamations, all uttered in the very highest key of which his voice was capable.
And among these utterances, and conspicuously intoned, was the well-known hail, “Ship ahoy!” followed by other nautical phrases, denoting the recognition of a ship.
“Golly! it am a ship,” interposed Snowball, “a ship on de fire!”
“No! no!” impatiently answered the ex-whalesman, “nothing o’ the sort. It’s a whaler ‘tryin’-out’ her oil. Don’t you see the men yonder, standin’ by the try-works, are throwin’ in the ‘scraps’? Lord o’ mercy! if they should pass us without hearing our hail! Ship ahoy! whaler ahoy!” And the sailor once more put forth his cries with all the power that lay in his lungs.
To this was added the stentorian voice of the Coromantee, who, quickly catching the explanation given by the ex-whalesman, saw the necessity of making himself heard.
For some moments the deck of the Catamaran rang with the shouts, “Ship ahoy!”
“Whaler ahoy!” that might have been heard far over the ocean,—much farther than the distance at which the strange vessel appeared to be; but, to the consternation of those who gave utterance to those cries, no answer was returned.
They could now distinctly see the ship, and almost everything aboard of her; for the two columns of flame rising high in forward of her foremast, out of the huge double furnace of the “try-works,” illuminated not only the decks of the vessel, but the surface of the sea for miles around her.
They could see rolling sternward immense volumes of thick smoke, gleaming yellow under the light of the blazing fires; and the figures of men looming like giants in the glare of the garish flames,—some standing in front of the furnace, others moving about, and actively engaged in some species of industry, that to the eye of any other than a whalesman might have appeared supernatural.
Notwithstanding the distinctness with which they saw all these things, and the evident proximity of the ship, those on the raft could not make themselves heard, shout as loudly as they would.
This might have appeared strange to the Catamarans, and led them to believe that it was, in reality, a phantom ship they were hailing, and the gigantic figures they saw were those of spectres instead of men.
But the experience of the ex-whalesman forbade any such belief. He knew the ship to be a whaler, the moving forms to be men,—her crew,—and he knew, moreover, the reason why these had not answered his hail. They had not heard it. The roaring of the great furnace fires either drowned or deadened every other sound; even the voices of the whalesmen themselves, as they stood close to each other.
Ben Brace remembered all this; and the thought that the ship might pass them, unheard and unheeded, filled his mind with dread apprehension.
But for a circumstance in their favour this might have been the lamentable result. Fortunately, however, there was a circumstance that led to a more happy termination of that chance encounter of the two strange crafts,—the Catamaran and the whale-ship.
The latter, engaged, as appearances indicated, in the process of “trying-out” the blubber of some whale lately harpooned, was “laying-to” against the wind; and, of course not making much way, nor caring to make it, through the water.
As she was coming up slowly, her head set almost “into the wind’s eye,” the Catamarans, well to windward, would have no difficulty in getting their craft close up to her.
The sailor was not slow in perceiving their advantageous position; and as soon as he became satisfied that the distance was too great for their hail to be heard, he sprang to the steering-oar, turned the helm “hard a port,” and set his craft’s head on towards the whaler, as if determined to run her down.
In a few seconds the raft was surging along within a cable’s length of the whaler’s bows, when the cry of “Ship ahoy!” was once more raised by both Snowball and the sailor. Though the hail was heard, the reply was not instantaneous; for the crew of the whale-ship, guided by the shouts of those on the raft, had looked forth upon the illumined water, and, seeing such a strange embarkation right under their bows, were for some moments silent through sheer surprise.
The ex-whalesman, however, soon made himself intelligible, and in ten minutes after the crew of the Catamaran, instead of shivering in wet clothes, with hungry stomachs to make them still more miserable, might have been seen standing in front of an immense fire, with an ample supply of wholesome food set before them, and surrounded by a score of rude but honest men, each trying to excel the other in contributing to their comfort.