The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea

For this reason he would have approached its shores with greater caution; and he was in the act of enforcing this upon his companions, when his intention was entirely frustrated by the joyous huzza uttered by Snowball; echoed by little William; and chorussed by the childish, feminine voice of Lilly Lalee.

The sailor’s caution would have come too late, – even had it been necessary to the safety of the Catamaran’s crew. Fortunately it was not: for that imprudent shout produced an effect which at once changed the current of the thoughts, not only of Ben Brace, but of those who had given utterance to it.

Their united voices, pealing across the tranquil bosom of the deep, caused a sudden change in the appearance of the island; or rather among the people who inhabited it. If human beings, they must be of a strange race, – very strange indeed, – to have been furnished with wings! How otherwise could they have forsaken their footing on terra firma, – if the island was such, – and soared upward into the air, which one and all of them did, on hearing that shout from the Catamaran?

There was not much speculation on this point on the part of the Catamaran’s crew. Whatever doubts may have been engendered as to the nature of the island, there could be no longer any about the character of its inhabitants.

“Dey am birds!” suggested the Coromantee; “nuffin more and nuffin less dan birds!”

“You’re right, Snowy,” assented the sailor. “They be birds; and all the better they be so. Yes; they’re birds, for sartin. I can tell the cut o’ some o’ their jibs. I see frigates, an’ a man-o’-war’s-man, an’ boobies among ’em; and I reckon Old Mother Carey has a brood o’ her chickens there. They be all sizes, as ye see.”

It was no more a matter of conjecture, as to what kind of creatures inhabited the island. The forms that had been mystifying the crew of the Catamaran, though of the biped class, were no longer to be regarded as human beings, or even creatures of the earth. They had declared themselves denizens of the air; and, startled by the shouts that had reached them, – to them, no doubt, sounds strange, and never before heard, – they had sought security in an element into which there was no fear of being followed by their enemies, either of the earth or the water.

Chapter Fifty Eight.

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.

Chapter Fifty Nine.

Aboard the Body of a Whale

The object of their united reconnoissance was the same which, but a few moments before, had occupied the attention of the sailor. They were standing on the dead body of a whale that had been killed by harpoons. Where were the people who had harpooned it?

After scanning the horizon with the same careful scrutiny as before, the sailor once more turned his attention to the huge leviathan, on whose back they were borne.

Several objects not before seen now attracted the attention of himself and companion. The tall flag, known among whalers by the name of “whift,” was not the only evidence of the manner in which the cachalot had met its death. Two large harpoons were seen sticking out of its side, their iron arrows buried up to the socket in its blubber; while from the thick wooden shanks, protruding beyond the skin, were lines extending into the water, at the ends of which were large blocks of wood floating like buoys upon the surface of the sea.

Ben identified the latter as the “drogues,” that form part of the equipment of a regular whale-ship. He knew them well, and their use. Before becoming a man-o’-war’s-man, he had handled the harpoon; and was perfectly au fait to all connected with the calling of a whaler.

“Yes,” resumed he, on recognising the implements of his ci-devant profession, “it ha’ been jest as I said. A whaler ’a been over this ground, and killed the spermacety. Maybe I’m wrong about that,” he added, after reflecting a short while. “I may be wrong about the ship being over this very ground. I don’t like the look o’ them drogues.”

“De drogue?” inquired the Coromantee. “Dem block o’ wood dat am driffin’ about? Wha’ for you no like dem, Massa Brace?”

“But for their bein’ thear I could say for sartin a ship had been here.”

“Must a’ been!” asserted Snowball. “If no’, how you count for de presence ob de flag and de hapoons?”

“Ah!” answered the sailor, with something like a sigh; “they kud a’ got thear, without the men as throwed ’em bein’ anywhere near this. You know nothin’ o’ whalin’, Snowy.”

This speech put Snowball in a quandary.

“You see, nigger,” continued the sailor, “the presence o’ them drogues indercates that the whale warn’t dead when the boats left her.” (The ci-devant whaler followed the fashion of his former associates, in speaking of the whale, among whom the epicene gender of the animal is always feminine.) “She must a’ been still alive,” continued he, “and the drogues were put thear to hinder her from makin’ much way through the water. In coorse there must a’ been a school o’ the spermacetys; and the crew o’ the whaler didn’t want to lose time with this ’un, which they had wounded. For that reason they have struck her with this pair o’ drogued harpoons; and stuck this whift into her back. On fust seein’ that, I war inclined to think different. You see the whift be stickin’ a’most straight up, an’ how could that a’ been done by them in the boats? If the whale hadn’t a’ been dead, nobody would a’ dared to a clombed on to her an’ fix the flag that way.”

“You are right dar,” interrupted Snowball.

“No,” rejoined the sailor, “I ain’t. I thought I war; but I war wrong, as you be now, Snowy. You see the flag-spear ain’t straight into the back o’ the anymal. It’s to one side, though it now stand nearly on top; because the body o’ the whale be canted over a bit. A first-rate ‘heads-man’ o’ a whale-boat could easily a’ throwed it that way from the bottom o’ his boat, and that’s the way it ha’ been done.”

“Spose ’im hab been jest dat way,” assented Snowball. “But wha’ matter ’bout dat? De whale have been kill all de same.”

“What matter? Everything do it matter.”

“’Splain, Massa Brace!”