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

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.

Chapter Sixty Three.

A Harpoon well handled

It was some time before either his breath or the tranquillity of his spirits was restored to the Coromantee.

The sailor was equally suffering from the loss of the former; and both remained for a good many minutes without taking any further steps towards the accomplishment of the design which had brought them on the back of the whale.

As soon, however, as Snowball could find wind enough for a few words, they were uttered in a tone of gratitude, – first to Ben, who had hindered him from sinking down into something worse than a watery grave; and then to little William, who had aided in raising him up from it.

Ben less regarded the old comrade whom he had rescued than the young one who had been instrumental in aiding him.

He stood gazing upon the youth with eyes that expressed a lively satisfaction.

The promptitude and prowess which his protégé had exhibited in the affair was to him a source of the greatest gratification.

Many a boy old as he, – ay, older, thought Ben Brace, – instead of having the sense shown by the lad in promptly running to the rescue, would have remained upon the raft in mute surprise; or, at the best, have evinced his sympathy by a series of unserviceable shouts, or a continued and idle screaming.

Ben did not wish to spoil his protégé by any spoken formula of praise, and therefore he said nothing: though, from his glances directed towards little William, it was easy to see that the bosom of the brave tar was swelling with a fond pride in the youth, for whom he had long felt an affection almost equalling that of a father.

After indulging a short while in the mutual congratulations that naturally follow such a crisis of danger, all three proceeded to the execution of the duty so unexpectedly interrupted.

William had succeeded Snowball in that simple culinary operation which the latter, commanded by his captain, had so suddenly relinquished.

The lad now returned to the raft, partly to complete the process of broiling the fish; but perhaps with a greater desire to tranquillise the fears of Lilly Lalee, – who, ignorant of the exact upshot of what had transpired, was yet in a state of unpleasant agitation.

Ben only waited for the return of his breath; and as soon as that was fairly restored to him, he once more set about the design that had caused him for the second time to climb upon the back of the cachalot.

Taking the harpoon from the hands of the Coromantee, – who still kept clutching it, as if there was danger in letting it go, – the sailor proceeded to draw up the drogue. Assisted by Snowball, he soon raised it out of the water, and hoisted it to the horizontal platform, on which they had placed themselves.

He did not want the block of wood just then, – only the line tied to it; and this having been detached, the drogue was left lying upon the carcass.

Armed with the harpoon, the ci-devant whaleman now took a survey, – not of the land, but of the sea around him.

There was an assemblage of sharks close in to the body of the whale, – at the spot where they had so lately threatened Snowball.

Some of them had since scattered away, with a full consciousness of their disappointment; but the greater number had stayed, as if unsatisfied, or expecting that the banquet that had been so near their noses might be brought back to them.

Ben’s purpose was to harpoon some half-dozen of these ill-featured denizens of the deep, and with their flesh replenish the stores of the Catamaran; for repulsive as the brutes may appear to the eye, and repugnant to the thoughts, they nevertheless, – that is, certain species of them, and certain parts of these species, – afford excellent food: such as an epicure, – to say nothing of a man half-famished, – may eat with sufficient relish.

There could have been no difficulty in destroying any of the sharks so late threatening to swallow Snowball, had the harpooner been able to get within striking distance of them. But the slippery skin of the whale deterred the sailor from trusting himself on that dangerous incline; and he determined, therefore, to try elsewhere.

In the direction of the cachalot’s tail the descent was gradual. Scarcely perceptible was its declination towards the water, upon which lay the two great flukes, slightly sunk below the surface, and extending on each side to a breadth of many yards.

There were several sharks playing around the tail of the cachalot. They might come within the pitch of a harpoon. If not, the old whaleman knew how to attract them within easy reach of that formidable weapon.

Directing Snowball to bring after him some of the pieces of blubber, – which, in cutting out the harpoon, had been detached from the carcass, – Ben proceeded towards the tail. Here and there as he advanced, with the sharp edge of the harpoon blade; he cut out a number of holes in the spongy skin, in order to give both himself and his follower a more sure footing on the slimy surface.

At the point where he intended to take his stand, – close in by the “crutch” of the cachalot’s tail-fin, – he made three excavations with more care. At length, satisfied with his preparations, he stood, with pointed harpoon, waiting for we of the sharks to come within striking distance. They “fought shy” at first; but the old whaleman knew a way of overcoming their shyness. It only required that “chunk” of blubber, held in the hands of Snowball, to be thrown into the water, and simultaneous with the plunge a score of sharks would be seen rushing, open-mouthed, to seize upon it.

This in effect was precisely what transpired.

The blubber was dropped into the sea, close as possible to the carcass of the whale, – the sharks came charging towards it, – nearly twenty of them. The same number, however, did not go back as they had come; for one of them, impaled by the harpoon of Ben Brace, was dragged out of his native element, and hauled up the well-greased incline towards the highest point on the carcass of the cachalot.

There, notwithstanding his struggles and the desperate as well as dangerous fluking of his posterior fins, he was soon despatched by the axe, wielded with all the might and dexterity which the Coromantee could command.

Another shark was “hooked,” and then despatched in a similar fashion; and then another and another, until Ben Brace believed that enough shark-flesh had been obtained to furnish the Catamaran with stores for the most prolonged voyage.

At all events, they would now have food – such as it was – to last as long as the water with which the hand of Providence alone seemed to have provided them.

Chapter Sixty Four.

The thick Waters

The most palatable portions of the sharks’ flesh having been stripped from the bones and cut into thin slices, were now to be submitted to a drying, or rather broiling process. This was to be accomplished by a fire of spermaceti.

As already stated, there was no scarcity on the score of this fuel. The “case” of the cachalot contained enough to have roasted all the sharks within a circle of ten mile around it; and, to all appearance, there were hundreds of them inside that circumference. Indeed, that part of the ocean where the dead whale had been found, though far from any land, is at all times most prolific in animal life. Sometimes the sea for miles around a ship will be seen swarming with fish of various kinds, while the air is filled with birds. In the water may be seen large “schools” of whales, “basking” – as the whalers term it – at intervals, “spouting” forth their vaporous breath, or moving slowly onward, – some of them, every now and then, exhibiting their uncouth gambols. Shoals of porpoises, albacores, bonitos, and other gregarious fishes will appear in the same place, – each kind in pursuit of its favourite prey, while sharks, threshers, and sword-fish, accompanied by their “pilots” and “suckers,” though in lesser numbers, here also abound, – from the very abundance of the species on which these sea-monsters subsist “Flocks” of flying-fish sparkle in the sun with troops of bonitos gliding watchful below, while above them the sky will sometimes be literally clouded with predatory birds, – gulls, boobies, gannets, tropic and frigate-birds, albatrosses, and a score of other kinds but little known, and as yet undescribed by the naturalist.