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Updated: May 26, 2025
As the shark is not a personage to submit patiently to such treatment, it will not be well for any one whose foot happens to be accidentally on the coil of the rope, for, when the hook is first fixed, it spins out like the log-line of a ship going twelve knots.
Looking about him he espied a lead-line near the binnacle; he cut the lead from this, and fastening it to the end of the log-line, began forthwith to take deep-sea soundings. This was quite to his taste, for when he stood upon the vessel's side, in order to let the line run more freely, and held up the reel with both hands, the way in which it spun round was quite refreshing to his happy spirit.
"I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian; reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and mend thou the line. See to it." "There he goes now; to him nothing's happened; but to me, the skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in, Tahitian!
We held a final conference in the cabin and decided that there was no help for it we must turn back. And back we accordingly turned, and at once the wind followed us, and the "current" helped us, and the water churned under the forefoot of the Glarus, and the wake whitened under her stern, and the log-line ran out from the trail and strained back as the ship worked homeward.
Quite literally and truly we could do nothing with her. We will say, if you like, that that great jar and wrench when the shaft gave way shook her and crippled her. It is true, however, that whatever the cause may have been, we could not force her toward the island. Of course, we all said "current"; but why didn't the log-line trail? For three days and three nights we tried it.
I ran to his side and saw the log-line, which till then had been drawn tense over the stern railing, slacken, loop, and come up off the port quarter. Frithiof called up the speaking tube to the bridge, and the bridge answered, 'Yes, nine knots. Then Frithiof spoke again, and the answer was, 'What do you want of the skipper? and Frithiof bellowed, 'Call him up.
By this time Zuyland, Keller, and myself had caught something of Frithiof's excitement, for any emotion on shipboard is most contagious. The captain ran out of his cabin, spoke to Frithiof, looked at the log-line, jumped on the bridge, and in a minute we felt the steamer swing round as Frithiof turned her. ''Going back to Cape Town? said Keller.
By rare bad luck the weather was stormy or cloudy during her whole passage, so that the captain could not get a sight on the sun, and therefore had to trust to his compass and his log-line, the former telling him in what direction he had steamed, and the latter how fast he was going each hour.
The half-minute glass used on board the Young America, held by the quartermaster, was like an hour glass, and contained just sand enough to pass through the hole in the neck in thirty seconds. The log-line was one hundred and fifty fathoms in length, and was wound on a reel, which turned very easily, so that the resistance of the chip to the water would unwind it.
Then, suddenly, while he called up with tenacious mind all the incidents of this inexplicable voyage, he felt that his compass must have been injured. He remembered, too, that the first compass had been broken, and that the log-line had snapped a fact which had made it impossible for him to establish the speed of the "Pilgrim."
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