We were cruising in open water soon with two whaling ships in sight, the and the Helen Marr, both barkentines and carrying five boats each, when we raised a school of bowheads straight ahead and about five miles distant. There were twenty-five or thirty whales and a broad patch of sea was covered with their fountains. The other ships saw them about the same time. The long-drawn, musical "Blo-o-o-w!" from their mastheads came to us across the water. Aboard the brig, the watch was called and all hands were to the boats. Falls were thrown off the hooks and we stood by to lower as soon as the captain gave the word. There was equal on the other ships. Traveling before a favoring breeze in the same direction as the whales, the three waited until they could work closer. Each captain in the meanwhile kept a eye on the others. None of them proposed to let his rivals get the start. The Reindeer was to windward of us, the Helen Marr on our lee.
When the ships had reached within a mile of the whales Captain Shorey sent our boats down. Instantly the other skippers did the same. Soon thirteen whale boats were speeding on the chase.
Fine sailing weather it was, with a fresh breeze the surface of a gently heaving sea. With all sails set and keeping well apart, the boats heeled over, their crews sitting lined up along the weather gunwales. There seemed no chance of any clash or misunderstanding. There were plenty of whales, and with any luck there would be glory enough and profit enough for all.
Like a line of skirmishers against an enemy, the boats stole silently toward the whales. We soon saw the great animals were busy feeding. A few inches below the surface the sea was filled with "whale food," a round, , disk-like jellyfish about the size of a silver dollar and white. When he arrived in this Arctic Ocean whale pasture the water seemed snowy with the millions of jellyfish. With open , the whales swam this way and that, making swaths a hundred yards long through the gelatinous masses, their great heads and backs well out of water, their now and then flapping . When they had a sufficient quantity of the jellyfish in the long hair hanging from the inner edges of their teeth they closed their mouths with snaps that sent the water splashing out on either side.
Before the whales were aware of danger, the boats rushed in among them. Each boatheader singled out a whale, and five boats were quickly fast—two from the Reindeer, two from the Helen Marr, and Mr. Winchester's boat. Wild and confusion instantly ensued among the great animals. They went below in alarm and the boats that made no strike at the first onslaught had no chance thereafter. The whales did not stop to investigate the causes of the sudden interruption of their banquet. The sea swallowed them up and we did not see them again. A little later we caught a glimpse of their fountains twinkling against the sky on the far horizon.
Mr. Winchester's whale was about among the jellyfish with jaws widely when the boat slipped silently upon it. As the bumped against its black skin, Long John drove a up to the in its back. With a tonite bomb shattered in its vitals, the monster sounded in a of . In the dynamic violence with which it got under way it stood on its head. Its flukes, easily twenty feet from tip to tip, shot at least thirty feet into the air. They swung over to one side, the great body forming a high arch, and struck the sea with a . Then they sailed on high again to come down on the other side with another broadside smash. Again they rose like lightning into the air and the whale seemed to slip down into the ocean.
It was evident at the outset that the animal was badly wounded. It swam only a short distance below the surface and not rapidly, sending up thousands of bubbles to mark its course. This broad highway of bubbles curved and turned, but Mr. Winchester, who had been smart enough not to lower his sail, followed it as a hound follows the trail of a deer. The boat sailed almost as swiftly as the whale swam and was able to keep almost directly above it. When the whale came to the surface the mate was upon it and Long John's second harpoon stopped it dead in its track. The whale went through no flurry, but died instantly and rolled over on its back.
With excitement all about, there was nothing for Mr. Landers or Gabriel to do. So we sat still in the boats and watched the swift incidents of the far-flung battle.
One of the whales struck by a boat from the Reindeer almost completely out of water as soon as it felt the sting of the harpoon. It floundered down like a falling tower, rolled about for a moment before sinking to a swimming depth, and made off at mad speed. It rose within twenty feet of where our boat lay at a standstill and we could see its wild eye, as big as a saucer, as the injured creature blew up a fountain whose spray fell all over us. The boat it was dragging soon went flashing past us, the crew sitting down and silent.
"Swing to him, fellers," shouted Kaiuli, up and waving his hat about his head.
But the others paid no attention to our South Sea island . They were intent just then on tragedy. Their boat struck the whale at its next rise. The animal went into a violent flurry. It beat the sea into a with fins and flukes and around on its side in a semi-circle, clashing its great jaws, until it finally and lay limp and lifeless.
The whale struck by the other boat from the Reindeer ran out a tub of line, but a second boat had come up in time to bend on its own line and took the animal in tow. Before the whale had run out this new tub, a third boat ............