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Updated: May 8, 2025
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.
Being sure that the Wavecrest was safely moored to the body of the dead leviathan, I set about correcting the need which preyed upon me. I was thankful, indeed, that I had stocked my larder so well on that last day at Bolderhead. There was plenty of water, too.
My only hope then was that I might be rescued by some larger vessel and how I should get from the Wavecrest craft to another was beyond the power of my imaginings. I could not be content to remain below nor was that unnatural.
I had been quite sure that Paul Downes and his friends knew I was aboard the Wavecrest when they nailed me into the cabin. But it really never crossed my mind that they had deliberately cut the sloop adrift. But here was evidence of the crime. There was no doubting it.
I only know that I was smothered, drowned, completely overwhelmed by the deluge of water that came inboard. The force of it burst open the slide of the hatch and barrels of water flooded into the cabin. The Wavecrest settled. If another wave as great had come inboard directly in the wake of this one, I am convinced that I would not be writing this record of my life.
Therefore I snubbed the nose of the rowboat up short to the float, and then, after getting into the bows of the Wavecrest I let go her cable and paid out several yards so that the float and the tender were both out of sight in the darkness. I chuckled then, as I crept aft to the cockpit and unlocked the door of the little cabin.
The dead whale lay in a slick, or "sleep," as some old whalemen pronounce the word, and hope revived in my troubled mind the instant I realized what the object was, and its condition. The waves were following me as hungrily as ever; at any moment the sloop might be overwhelmed. But once let me get the Wavecrest in the lee of this dead whale, I could bid defiance to the storm.
As soon as possible I shoved it back far enough for my body to pass through the aperture. The rain beat down upon my face as I worked my way out of the cabin in my oilskins; I left my hat behind. The Wavecrest was pitching and yawing pretty badly now and before I cast a single glance around I was sure that she was already going through the inlet.
And it wasn't bilge long, but came clear. Inboard came another wave but not a large one this time and I pumped harder than ever. The Wavecrest was lumbering on too slowly to escape the following waves. In her then condition it would have been folly to seek to head her about. She would have rolled helplessly in the trough of the sea as sure as I tried it.
I trembled at the sight and as the seconds passed I grew more terrified and for good reason. What would happen to me if any of those whirling columns of water and mist struck the dead whale? If they burst upon the drifting mammal where would I be? What would happen to the Wavecrest? And then quite suddenly there came a change in the on-rushing tornado.
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