At sea, the best English they speak is the South Seaman's slogan in lowering away, »A dead whale, or a stove boat!« Game to the marrow, these fellows are generally selected for harpooneers; a post in which a nervous, timid man would be rather out of his element.

In darting, the harpooneer, of course, stands erect in the head of the boat, one knee braced against a support. But Bembo disdained this; and was always pulled up to his fish, balancing himself right on the gunwale.

But to my story. One morning, at daybreak, they brought him up to a large, lone whale. He darted his harpoon, and missed; and the fish sounded. After a while, the monster rose again, about a mile off, and they made after him. But he was frightened, or ›gallied,‹ as they call it; and noon came, and the boat was still chasing him. In whaling, as long as the fish is in sight, and no matter what may have been previously undergone, there is no giving up, except when night comes; and nowadays, when whales are so hard to be got, frequently not even then. At last, Bembo's whale was alongside for the second time. He darted both harpoons; but, as sometimes happens to the best men, by some unaccountable chance, once more missed. Though it is well known that such failures will happen at times, they, nevertheless, occasion the bitterest disappointment to a boat's crew, generally expressed in curses both loud and deep. And no wonder. Let any man pull with might and main for hours and hours together under a burning sun, and if it do not make him a little peevish, he is no sailor.

The taunts of the seamen may have maddened the Mowree; however it was, no sooner was he brought up again, than, harpoon in hand, he bounded upon the whale's back, and for one dizzy second was seen there. The next, all was foam and fury, and both were out of sight. The men sheered off, flinging overboard the line as fast as they could; while ahead, nothing was seen but a red whirlpool of blood and brine.

Presently, a dark object swam out; the line began to straighten; then smoked round the loggerhead, and, quick as thought, the boat sped like an arrow through the water. They were ›fast,‹ and the whale was running.

Where was the Mowree? His brown hand was on the boat's gunwale; and he was hauled aboard in the very midst of the mad bubbles that burst under the bows.

Such a man, or devil, if you will, was Bembo.

 

 

Chapter XX

The Round Robin – Visitors from Shore

After the captain left, the land-breeze died away; and, as is usual about these islands, toward noon it fell a dead calm. There was nothing to do but haul up the courses, run down the jib, and lie and roll up the swells. The repose of the elements seemed to communicate itself to the men; and for a time there was a lull.

Early in the afternoon, the mate, having left the captain at Papeetee, returned to the ship. According to the steward, they were to go ashore again right after dinner with the remainder of Guy's effects.

On gaining the deck, Jermin purposely avoided us, and went below without saying a word. Meanwhile, Long Ghost and I laboured hard to diffuse the right spirit among the crew; impressing upon them that a little patience and management would, in the end, accomplish all that their violence could; and that, too, without making a serious matter of it.

For my own part, I felt that I was under a foreign flag; that an English consul was close at hand, and that sailors seldom obtain justice. It was best to be prudent. Still, so much did I sympathise with the men – so far, at least, as their real grievances were concerned – and so convinced was I of the cruelty and injustice of what Captain Guy seemed bent upon, that, if need were, I stood ready to raise a hand.

In spite of all we could do, some of them again became most refractory, breathing nothing but downright mutiny. When we went below to dinner, these fellows stirred up such a prodigious tumult that the old hull fairly echoed. Many, and fierce too, were the speeches delivered, and uproarious the comments of the sailors. Among others, Long Jim, or – as the doctor afterward called him – Lacedæmonian Jim, rose in his place, and addressed the forecastle parliament in the following strain: –

»Look ye, Britons! if, after what's happened, this here craft goes to sea with us, we are no men; and that's the way to say it. Speak the word, my livelies, and I 'll pilot her in. I 've been to Tahiti before, and I can do it.« Whereupon, he sat down amid a universal pounding of chest-lids and cymballing of tin pans; the few invalids, who, as yet, had not been actively engaged with the rest, now taking part in the applause, creaking their bunk-boards and swinging their hammocks. Cries were also heard of »Handspikes and a shindy!« »Out stun'-sails!« »Hurrah!«

Several now ran on deck, and, for a moment, I thought it was all over with us; but we finally succeeded in restoring some degree of quiet.

At last, by way of diverting their thoughts, I proposed that a ›Round Robin‹ should be prepared and sent ashore to the consul by Baltimore, the cook. The idea took mightily, and I was told to set about it at once. On turning to the doctor for the requisite materials, he told me he had none; there was not a fly-leaf, even, in any of his books. So, after great search, a damp, musty volume, entitled A History of the most Atrocious and Bloody Piracies, was produced, and its two remaining blank leaves being torn out, were, by help of a little pitch, lengthened into one sheet.