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It seems to be coming in, so they will not go out to it till to-morrow. Whalers are no good as regards taking letters, because it may be so long before they make a port. Friday, December 7. The whaler came in on Thursday and the men started out to meet her, but finding that she was sending a boat ashore, returned. In the boat was the harpooner, a brother of Sam Swain, senior.
Ben identified the latter as the "drogues," that form part of the equipment of a regular whale-ship. He knew them well, and their use. Before becoming a man-o'-war's-man, he had handled the harpoon; and was perfectly au fait to all connected with the calling of a whaler. "Yes," resumed he, on recognising the implements of his ci-devant profession, "it ha' been jest as I said.
It seems that, in the year Ten Hundred Six, one Thorfinne, an Icelandic whaler, commanded a ship which traversed the broad Atlantic, and skirted the coast of New England. Thorfinne wintered his craft in one of the little bays of Rhode Island, and spent the Winter at Mount Hope, where the marks of his habitat endure even unto this day.
He was a newspaper-man, bound round the world by way of Alaska and Siberia. I'd run away from a whaler at Sitka, that squares it with Brown, and I engaged with him for forty a month and found. Well, he quarrelled with me " A snicker, beginning from nowhere in particular, but passing on from man to man and swelling in volume, greeted this statement.
"Why, Shandon is commander, and nothing else; he's a brave and bold sailor, an experienced whaler, and a jolly fellow worthy in every respect to be the captain, but he isn't any more captain than you or I. As to who is going to command after God on board he doesn't know any more than we do.
No, indeed, it was somebody better than the captain of a whaler." "Don't be so superior, Tess. Your brother Ned hopes to be skipper of a whaler some day." "But Ned is very good-looking, and " "So was old Ayton before he lost his teeth, and one eye, and began 'ter chaw terbacker' and drink Bourbon by the gallon.... Beauty is only skin deep, my child."
We rafted off several casks of water during that day, and on the following we completed our water, and then ran to the east end of the island to anchor near, and wait for our consort the whaler, the captain of which had come in his boat to visit us: I conversed with him, and was struck with one remark which he made.
To my mother I wrote cheerfully and asked her to have money sent me at Buenos Ayres, as that might be a port the Scarboro would touch at, or a port I could reach if I left the whaleship. I cannot say that I was continually worried by my state aboard the whaler. What boy would not have delighted in being thus thrust into the midst of the very life and work he had so longed to follow?
"I'm not so sure o' that," said he; "if she's a whaler like the one we came south in, lad, she'll not trouble herself with us." Billy looked very grave, and his heart sank. "My only consolation is that she looks more like a man-o'-war than a whaler."
More beautiful weather, I never met at sea." Upon this, I sent for the log-book, and ascertained, by day and date, that the Crisis was not within fifty leagues of the spot, where we encountered the thunder-squall. Of course the ship we saw was a stranger; most probably a whaler. This destroyed any little hope that was left concerning Marble's fate.
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