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Updated: May 11, 2025
The boat-steerer now stood ready to let the lines run through the loggerhead over the bows of the boat. Should anyone be seized by their coils as they are running out, his death would be certain. Soon finding the hopelessness of contending with his enemies above water, the whale lifted his flukes and sounded. Down, down he went into the depths of the ocean.
Most of the men sat with their arms crossed, and bodies half-turned, regarding the scene, while the two officers, the master and boat-steerer, if the latter could properly be thus designated, watched each evolution with a keenness of vigilance that let nothing like a sign or a symptom escape them.
The monster threw up a thin wreath of slightly discolored spray, and set off at a velocity of speed almost incredible. Away he went, the boat following in his wake and cutting the water like a thing of life the boat-steerer and line-tender carefully watching every movement, for the lives of all on board depended on their vigilance.
When we struck the sealing-grounds he turned out to be next to the best boat-steerer aboard. Only French Louis, who'd been at it for years, could beat him. I'm only a boat-puller, and you're only a boat-puller, too, Emil Johansen, for all your twenty-two years at sea. Why don't you become a boat-steerer?" "Too clumsy," laughed the Englishman, "and too slow."
As soon as the captains had stepped out upon the beach and I had bidden the four sailors who were with me to push off to return to the ship, the trader, seeing the tatooing on my arms, gave a shout. "'Ho, he cried, turning to my captain, 'whence comes that boat-steerer of thine? By the markings on his arms and chest he should be from the isles of the Tokelau. "My captain laughed.
He signed as good as any of us and he's shown himself as good " "Better!" broke in a Novia Scotia man. "Better than some of us! When we struck the sealing-grounds he turned out to be next to the best boat-steerer aboard. Only French Louis, who'd been at it for years, could beat him. I'm only a boat-puller, and you're only a boat-puller, too, Emil Johansen, for all your twenty-two years at sea.
I had the physique for it, being such a stocky fellow. And the hard life I had lived since being swept out to sea in my Wavecrest had agreed with me. My muscles were like wire cables, I was burned as black as a negro, and there was scarcely a man aboard the bark whom I could not have flung in a fair wrestle. "Give Clint his chance, Tom," said Mr. Gibson, as the boat-steerer came forward.
Owing to this arrangement, the harpoon offers less resistance to the water, as the whale passes swiftly through it. No sooner did the boat-steerer, or harpooner, cast his 'irons, as whalers term the harpoon, than he changed places with Roswell, who left the steering-oar, and proceeded forward to wield the lance, the weapon with which the victory is finally consummated.
That afternoon we got our wood and water aboard, and were ready for sea at daylight. Alan was a splendid type of a man. Brought up to the sea from his childhood, he had served some years as a boat-steerer on American whale-ships, then with 'Bully' Hayes as boatswain in the notorious Rona brig; and a finer seaman never walked a deck.
"More refugees from inland, eh?" exclaimed a rough but cordial seaman, who proved to be the captain's harpooner and boat-steerer. "We have some traders from Aleukan already with us." "Ah!" said Professor Henderson, "we have been looking for them. They have arrived in safety, then?" "But nearly frozen," said the boat-steerer. "And where are the people of Nigatuk?"
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