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We commenced the operation of what is called "cutting-in," that is, cutting up the whale, and getting the fat or blubber hoisted in. The next thing we did was to "try out" the oil, or melt down the fat in large iron pots brought with us for this purpose; and the change that took place in the appearance of the ship and the men when this began was very remarkable.
All that was strong and virile and brutal in him seemed to harden and stiffen in the moment after he had seen the beach-comber collapse limply on the sand under the last strong knife-blow; and a sense of triumph, of boundless self-confidence, leaped within him, so that he shouted aloud in a very excess of exhilaration; and snatching up a heavy cutting-in spade, that had been dropped in the fight near the burning cabin, tossed it high into the air, catching it again as it descended, like any exultant savage.
"It's worth no end of money." "Wears yet a precious jewel in his crown," observed Newman, leaning eagerly over the side. "It's fine work this, though." A stage had been let down at the side of the vessel, on which those who had cut off the head were stationed. One of them now made a hole in the blubber with the instrument used for cutting-in, called a spade.
*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel; is about the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general shape, corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than the lower.
Cutting-in commenced at once, for fine weather there was by no means to be wasted, being of rare occurrence and liable at the shortest notice to be succeeded by a howling gale. Our latest acquisition, however, was of such gigantic proportions that the decapitation alone bade fair to take us all night.
"Bob Ledbury," said he, "have you got your cutting-in gear in order? I've got a notion that we'll 'raise the oil' this day." "All right, sir," said I; "you might shave yourself with the blubber-spades. That was a good fish we got last, sir, wasn't it?" "Pretty good, though I've seen bigger." "He gave us a deal of trouble too," said I. "Not so much as I've seen others give," said he.
"It seems to me," said Wilbur, "that we've got the long end." "We catch um boss, too!" said Charlie, pointing to Hoang. "And we are better armed," assented Moran. "We've got the cutting-in spades." "And the revolver, if it will shoot any further than it will kick." "They'll give us all the fight we want," declared Moran. "Oh, him Kai-gingh, him fight all same devil."
"Jerry," said a young English lad named Wray, to the elder Rodman, "do you hear that? One of the boats must have got 'fast' and killed. We'll be out of this in another half-hour, cutting-in. The captain won't let us lie here when there is work to be done on deck; he's too mean a Yankee to satisfy his revenge at the expense of his pocket."
What arms have we got?" "We've got the cutting-in spades," said Wilbur; "there's five of them. They're nearly ten feet long, and the blades are as sharp as razors; you couldn't want better pikes." "That's an idea," returned Moran, evidently willing to forget her outburst of a moment before, perhaps already sorry for it.
There was no part of her which I did not over-haul, and I could see that they had had a great time with whales, for a mighty carcass, attached to the outside of the ship by the powerful cant-purchase tackle, had been in process of flensing and cutting-in, and on the deck two great blankets of blubber, looking each a ton-weight, surrounded by twenty-seven men in many attitudes, some terrifying to see, some disgusting, several grotesque, all so unhuman, the whale dead, and the men dead, too, and death was there, and the rank-flourishing germs of Inanity, and a mesmerism, and a silence, whose dominion was established, and its reign was growing old.
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