第57章 LIBERTY DAY--AND AFTER(4)

It was a very pretty tangle, but our position was rather bad.

The whale between us was tearing the bowels of the deep up in his rage and fear; we were struggling frantically to get our sail down; and at any moment that wretched iron through our upper strake might tear a plank out of us.Our chief, foaming at the mouth with rage and excitement, was screeching inarticulate blasphemy at the other mate, who, not knowing what was the matter, was yelling back all his copious vocabulary of abuse.Ifelt very glad the whale was between us, or there would surely have been murder done.At last, out drops the iron, leaving a jagged hole you could put your arm through.Wasn't Mr.Count mad?

I really thought he would split with rage, for it was impossible for us to go on with that hole in our bilge.The second mate came alongside and took our line as the whale was just commencing to sound, thus setting us free.We made at once for the other ship's "fast" boat, and the compliments that had gone before were just casual conversation to what filled the air with dislocated language now.Presently both the champions cooled down a bit from want of breath, and we got our case stated.It was received with a yell of derision from the other side as a splendid effort of lying on our part; because the first ship fast claims the whale, and such a prize as this one we were quarrelling about was not to be tamely yielded.

However, as reason asserted her sway over Mr.Count, he quieted down, knowing full well that the state of the line belonging to his rival would reveal the truth when the whale rose again.

Therefore we returned to the ship, leaving our three boats busy waiting the whale's pleasure to rise again.When the skipper heard what had happened, he had his own boat manned, proceeding himself to the battle-field in expectation of complications presently.By the time he arrived upon the scene there were two more boats lying by, which had come up from the third ship, mentioned as working up from to leeward."Pretty fine ground this's got ter be!" growled the old man."Caint strike whale 'thout bein' crowded eout uv yer own propputty by a gang bunco steerers like this.Shall hev ter quit it, en keep a pawnshop."And still the whale kept going steadily down, down, down.

Already he was on the second boat's lines, and taking them out faster than ever.Had we been alone, this persistence on his part, though annoying, would not have mattered much; but, with so many others in company, the possibilities of complication, should we need to slip our end, were numerous.The ship kept near, and Mr.Count, seeing how matters were going, had hastily patched his boat, returning at once with another tub of line.He was but just in time to bend on, when to our great delight we saw the end slip from our rival's boat.This in no wise terminated his lien on the whale, supposing he could prove that he struck first, but it got him out of the way for the time.

Meanwhile we were running line faster than ever.There was an enormous length attached to the animal now--some twelve thousand feet--the weight of which was very great, to say nothing of the many "drogues" or "stopwaters" attached to it at intervals.

Judge, then, of my surprise when a shout of "Blo-o-o-w!" called my attention to the whale himself just breaking water about half a mile away.It was an awkward predicament; for if we let go our end, the others would be on the whale immediately; if we held on, we should certainly be dragged below in a twinkling; and our disengaged boats could do nothing, for they had no line.But the difficulty soon settled itself.Out ran our end, leaving us bare of line as pleasure skiffs.The newcomer, who had been prowling near, keeping a close watch upon us, saw our boat jump up when released from the weight.Off he flew like an arrow to the labouring leviathan, now a "free fish," except for such claims as the two first-comers had upon it, which claims are legally assessed, where no dispute arises.In its disabled condition, dragging so enormous a weight of line, it was but a few minutes before the fresh boat was fast, while we looked on helplessly, boiling with impotent rage.All that we could now hope for was the salvage of some of our line, a mile and a half of which, inextricably mixed up with about the same length of our rival's, was towing astern of the fast-expiring cachalot.

So great had been the strain upon that hardly-used animal that he did not go into his usual "flurry," but calmly expired without the faintest struggle.In the mean time two of our boats had been sent on board again to work the ship, while the skipper proceeded to try his luck in the recovery of his gear.On arriving at the dead whale, however, we found that he had rolled over and over beneath the water so many times that the line was fairly frapped round him, and the present possessors were in no mood to allow us the privilege of unrolling it.

During the conversation we had drawn very near the carcass, so near, in fact, that one hand was holding the boat alongside the whale's "small" by a bight of the line.I suppose the skipper's eagle eye must have caught sight of the trailing part of the line streaming beneath,for suddenly he plunged overboard, reappearing almost immediately with the line in his hand.He scrambled into the boat with it, cutting it from the whale at once, and starting his boat's crew hauling in.

Then there was a hubbub again.The captain of the NARRAGANSETT, our first rival, protested vigorously against our monopoly of the line; but in grim silence our skipper kept on, taking no notice of him, while we steadily hauled.Unless he of the NARRAGANSETTchoose to fight for what he considered his rights, there was no help for him.And there was something in our old man's appearance eminently calculated to discourage aggression of any kind.