by Jules Verne
CHAPTER XIX
A WHALE IN SIGHT
Melville Bay, though easily navigable, was not free from ice;ice-fields lay as far as the utmost limits of the horizon; a fewicebergs appeared here and there, but they were immovable, as ifanchored in the midst of the frozen fields. The _Forward_, with allsteam on, followed the wide passes where it was easy to work her.The wind changed frequently from one point of the compass to another.The variability of the wind in the Arctic Seas is a remarkable fact;sometimes a dead calm is followed in a few minutes by a violent tempest,as the _Forward_ found to her cost on the 23rd of June in the midstof the immense bay. The more constant winds blow from off the ice-bankon to the open sea, and are intensely cold. On that day the thermometerfell several degrees; the wind veered round to the south, and violentgusts, sweeping over the ice-fields, brought a thick snow along withthem. Hatteras immediately caused the sails that helped the screwto be furled, but not quickly enough to prevent his little foresailbeing carried away in the twinkling of an eye. Hatteras worked hisship with the greatest composure, and did not leave the deck duringthe tempest; he was obliged to fly before the weather and to turnwestward. The wind raised up enormous waves, in the midst of whichblocks of ice balanced themselves; these blocks were of all sizesand shapes, and had been struck off the surrounding ice-fields; thebrig was tossed about like a child's plaything, and morsels of thepacks were thrown over her hull; at one instant she was lyingperpendicularly along the side of a liquid mountain; her steel prowconcentrated the light, and shone like a melting metal bar; at anothershe was down an abyss, plunging her head into whirlwinds of snow,whilst her screws, out of the water, turned in space with a sinisternoise, striking the air with their paddles. Rain mixed with the snowand fell in torrents.
The doctor could not miss such an occasion of getting wet to the skin;he remained on deck, a prey to that emotional admiration which ascientific man must necessarily feel during such a spectacle. Hisnearest neighbour could not have heard him speak, so he said nothingand watched; but whilst watching he was witness to an odd phenomenon,peculiar to hyperborean regions. The tempest was confined to arestricted area, and only extended for about three or four miles;the wind that passes over ice-fields loses much of its strength andcannot carry its violence far out; the doctor perceived from timeto time, through an opening in the tempest, a calm sky and a quietsea beyond some ice-fields. The _Forward_ would therefore only haveto take advantage of some channels left by the ice to find a peacefulnavigation again, but she ran the risk of being thrown on to one ofthe moving banks which followed the movement of the swell. However,in a few hours Hatteras succeeded in getting his ship into a calmsea, whilst the violence of the hurricane spent itself at a few cables'length from the _Forward_. Melville Bay no longer presented the sameaspect; under the influence of the winds and the waves a great numberof icebergs, detached from the coast, floated northward, runningagainst one another in every direction. There were several hundredsof them, but the bay is very wide, and the brig easily avoided them.The spectacle of these floating masses was magnificent; they seemedto be having a grand race for it on the open sea. The doctor was gettingquite excited with watching them, when the harpooner, Simpson, cameup and made him look at the changing tints in the sea; they variedfrom a deep blue to olive green; long stripes stretched north andsouth in such decided lines that the eye could follow each shade outof sight. Sometimes a transparent sheet of water would follow aperfectly opaque sheet.
"Well, Mr. Clawbonny, what do you think of that?" said Simpson.
"I am of the same opinion as the whaler Scoresby on the nature ofthe different coloured waters; blue water has no animalculae, andgreen water is full of them. Scoresby has made several experimentson this subject, and I think he is right."
"Well, sir, I know something else about the colours in the sea, andif I were a whaler I should be precious glad to see them."
"But I don't see any whales," answered the doctor.
"You won't be long before you do, though, I can tell you. A whaleris lucky when he meets with those green stripes under this latitude."
"Why?" asked the doctor, who always liked to get information fromanybody who understood what they were talking about.
"Because whales are always found in great quantities in green water."
"What's the reason of that?"
"Because they find plenty of food in them."
"Are you sure of that?"
"I've seen it a hundred times, at least, in Baffin Sea; why shouldn'tit be the same in Melville Bay? Besides, look there, Mr. Clawbonny,"added Simpson, leaning over the barricading.
"Why any one would think it was the wake of a ship!"
"It is an oily substance that the whale leaves behind. The animalcan't be far off!"
The atmosphere was impregnated with a strong oily odour, and thedoctor attentively watched the surface of the water. The predictionof the harpooner was soon accomplished. Foker called out from themasthead--
"A whale alee!"
All looks turned to the direction indicated. A small spout wasperceived coming up out of the sea about a mile from the brig.
"There she spouts!" cried Simpson, who knew what that meant.
"She has disappeared!" answered the doctor.
"Oh, we could find her again easily enough if necessary!" said Simpson,with an accent of regret. To his great astonishment, and althoughno one dared ask for it, Hatteras gave orders to man the whaler.Johnson went aft to the stern, while Simpson, harpoon in hand, stoodin the bow. They could not prevent the doctor joining the expedition.The sea was pretty calm. The whaler soon got off, and in ten minuteswas a mile from the brig. The whale had taken in another provisionof air, and had plunged again; but she soon returned to the surfaceand spouted out that mixture of gas and mucus that escapes from herair-holes.
"There! There!" said Simpson, pointing to a spot about eight hundredyards from the boat. It was soon alongside the animal, and as theyhad seen her from the brig too, she came nearer, keeping little steamon. The enormous cetacean disappeared and reappeared as the wavesrose and fell, showing its black back like a rock in open sea. Whalesdo not swim quickly unless they are pursued, and this one only rockeditself in the waves. The boat silently approached along the greenwater; its opacity prevented the animal seeing the enemy. It is alwaysan agitating spectacle when a fragile boat attacks one of thesemonsters; this one was about 130 feet long, and it is not rare, betweenthe 72nd and the 80th degree, to meet with whales more than 180 feetlong. Ancient writers have described animals more than 700 feet long,but they drew upon their imagination for their facts. The boat soonneared the whale; on a sign from Simpson the men rested on their oars,and brandishing his harpoon, the experienced sailor threw it withall his strength; it went deep into the thick covering of fat. Thewounded whale struck the sea with its tail and plunged. The four oarswere immediately raised perpendicularly; the cord fastened to theharpoon, and attached to the bow, rolled rapidly out and dragged theboat along, steered cleverly by Johnson.
The whale got away from the brig and made for the moving icebergs;she kept on for more than half-an-hour; they were obliged to wet thecord fastened to the harpoon to prevent it catching fire by rubbingagainst the boat. When the whale seemed to be going along a littlemore slowly, the cord was pulled in little by little and rolled up;the whale soon reappeared on the surface of the sea, which she beatwith her formidable tail: veritable waterspouts fell in a violentrain on to the boat. It was getting nearer. Simpson had seized a longlance, and was preparing to give close battle to the animal, whenall at once the whale glided into a pass between two mountainousicebergs. The pursuit then became really dangerous.
"The devil!" said Johnson.
"Go ahead," cried Simpson; "we've got her!"
"But we can't follow her into the icebergs!" said Johnson, steeringsteadily.
"Yes we can!" cried Simpson.
"No, no!" cried some of the sailors.
"Yes, yes!" said others.
During the
discussion the whale had got between two floating mountainswhich the swell was bringing close together. The boat was beingdragged into this dangerous part when Johnson rushed to the fore,an axe in his hand, and cut the cord. He was just in time; the twomountains came together with a tremendous crash, crushing theunfortunate animal.
"The whale's lost!" cried Simpson.
"But we are saved!" answered Johnson.
"Well," said the doctor, who had not moved, "that was worth seeing!"
The crushing force of these ice-mountains is enormous. The whale wasvictim to an accident that often happens in these seas. Scoresbyrelates that in the course of a single summer thirty whales perishedin the same way in Baffin's Sea; he saw a three-master flattened ina minute between two immense walls of ice. Other vessels were splitthrough, as if with a lance, by pointed icicles a hundred feet long,meeting through the planks. A few minutes afterwards the boat hailedthe brig, and was soon in its accustomed place on deck.
"It is a lesson for those who are imprudent enough to adventure intothe channels amongst the ice!" said Shandon in a loud voice.