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Again an oar went up, and the third boat bent on, adding more drogues to stop his way. They at length appeared to have effect. "There; haul in the slack," cried old Tom. "He's rising, lads; he's rising!" The boat-steerer was seen in the last boat busily coiling away the line in the tub as he hauled it in.
The mate, whose post was aboard, was out with the boats, having temporarily taken Chris's place as boat-steerer. When good weather and good sport came together, the boats were accustomed to range far and wide, and often did not return to the schooner until long after dark. But for all that it was a perfect hunting day, Chris noted a growing anxiety on the part of the sailing-master.
Why don't you become a boat-steerer?" "Too clumsy," laughed the Englishman, "and too slow." "Little that counts, one way or the other," joined in Dane Jurgensen, coming to the aid of his Scandinavian brother. "Emil is a man grown and an able seaman; the boy is neither."
Gibson to me, taking the heavy whalegun from its covered beckets, after changing places again with old Tom. "Now for it!" muttered the boat-steerer, gripping the eighteen-foot oar and craning forward eagerly. He was just as excited as the rest of us. I hauled in on the line, standing firmly braced just behind the young second mate. The whale had actually come to a stop and did not sound.
"A pad piziness," the boat-steerer reiterated, dolorously, in the silence which followed. "A pad piziness. I vish I vas in Yokohama. Eh? Vot vas dot?" The vessel had suddenly heeled over. The decks were aslant. A tin pannikin rolled down the inclined plane, rattling and banging.
With his strong arm he bends to the oar, and urges his men to put forth all their strength, till the boat seems truly to fly over the water. On they steadily pull, neither turning to the right hand nor to the left for nearly half-an-hour. Were it not for the ice, their toil would be useless; but the boat-steerer looks out, and points eagerly ahead. On they pull.
Owing to this, and to the other measures taken, neither of the four was struck with a chill, and they all continued on. At the place mentioned by the black, the body of one of Daggett's best men, a boat-steerer, was found. The man was dead, of course, and the corpse was as rigid as a billet of wood.
We passed several shoals of them on our pull, before we got up to the run, near a small floe. "There she blows!" exclaimed our boat-steerer, almost in a whisper, so great was his eagerness and fear of disturbing the fish, as a large fish appeared close to us. We had a fine burst; the harpooner was on his feet, and, his weapon glancing from his hand, struck the monster.
Half a dozen strokes sent the boat to within striking distance and the boat-header called to his boat-steerer to 'Stand up. The boat-steerer, who pulls bow oar before a whale is struck, and goes aft after striking, is also the harpooner, and at the order to stand up, takes in his oar and seizes his harpoon.
The first struck fifty feet to windward of the boat, the second alongside; and at the third the boat-steerer let loose his steering-oar and crumpled up in the bottom of the boat. "I guess that'll fix them," Wolf Larsen said, rising to his feet. "I couldn't afford to let the hunter have it, and there is a chance the boat-puller doesn't know how to steer.
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