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In from thirty-six to forty hours the carcass will again rise to the surface, and as, before he was taken down, the whalemen have attached a line and buoy to the body, its whereabouts is easily discerned from the lookout on the headland; the boats again put off and tow it ashore to the trying-out works.
Gigantic black canvas wings hung from his shoulders, and a huge wig of rope-yarn, with the hair falling to his waist, sat on his head. He was escorted unsteadily to a seat upon the trying-out furnace. "All who have to worship the king, come forth, an' stan' out!" yelled the man with the horn. This was greeted with cheers and blasts on the conch-shells.
There could be no doubt that her trip was successful, for she lay at several ports not too well known, and the smoke of her trying-out insulted the beaches. Anon she departed, at the speed of the average London four-wheeler, and entered a semi-inland sea, warm, still, and blue, which is, perhaps, the most strictly preserved water in the world.
"The two boats are always in readiness at the trying-out works, a mile or so up the harbour; so too are the killers, and the look-out man, walking to the verge of the cliff, gazes down.
The upper jaw was removed for its long plates of whalebone or baleen that valuable substance which alone makes it worth while nowadays to go after the MYSTICETUS, the price obtained for the oil being so low as to make it not worth while to fit out ships to go in search of it alone. "Trying-out" the blubber, with its accompaniments, is carried on precisely as with the sperm whale.
All the available firearms were loaded, heavy stones which formed the ship's ballast, were placed along the waterways fore and aft in readiness to smash the canoes which he anticipated would come alongside, the trying-out works fires were lighted, and the huge try-pots filled with water, which when boiling would add to their means of defence, by pouring it down in bucketsful upon the savages; the cable was prepared for slipping, sails loosened, and every other precaution which suggested itself to him made.
There was, indeed, no night; the binnacle-lamp was not even lighted; and we were able to continue, without cessation, trying-out a whale, whose carcase floated alongside. Among other curious things I observed, were large masses of rock boulders they are called embedded in the base and centre of icebergs.
Fourteen days out from Sydney the Policy took her first whale, greatly to the delight of old Stevenson and the crew, who looked upon such early luck as a certain indication of a good cruise. After "trying-out" Foster kept on to the northward to the sperm-whaling grounds in the Moluccas.
In a second I guessed that they were off to tell the news so I made light of it by declaring that it must be the trying-out of some heavy artillery at Chalons; but when Madame Guix and I found ourselves alone, we looked at each other with interrogation points in our eyes.
And Frewen was a mascotte, and his half-caste boat-steerer was another, for whenever a pod of whales were sighted the second mate's boat was invariably the first to get fast, and on one glorious day off Sunday Island Frewen's boat killed three sperms a bull and two cows and the four other boats each got one or two, so that for over a week, in a calm sea, and under a cloudless sky of blue by day and night, "cutting in" and "trying-out" went on merrily, and the cooper and his mates toiled like Trojans, setting-up fresh barrels; and the smoke and glare of the try-works from the deck of the Casilda lit up the placid ocean for many a mile, whilst hordes of blue sharks rived and tore and ripped off the rich blubber from the whales lying alongside waiting to be cut-in, and Keller shot or lanced them by the score as he stood on the cutting-in stage or in one of the boats made fast to the chains on the free side.
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