by Jack London
CHAPTER XV
Had the trade wind not failed on the second day after laying the coursefor the Marquesas; had Captain Doane, at the mid-day meal, not grumbledonce again at being equipped with only one chronometer; had SimonNishikanta not become viciously angry thereat and gone on deck with hisrifle to find some sea-denizen to kill; and had the sea-denizen thatappeared close alongside been a bonita, a dolphin, a porpoise, analbacore, or anything else than a great, eighty-foot cow whaleaccompanied by her nursing calf--had any link been missing from thischain of events, the _Mary Turner_ would have undoubtedly reached theMarquesas, filled her water-barrels, and returned to thetreasure-hunting; and the destinies of Michael, Daughtry, Kwaque, andCocky would have been quite different and possibly less terrible.
But every link was present for the occasion. The schooner, in a deadcalm, was rolling over the huge, smooth seas, her boom sheets and tacklescrashing to the hollow thunder of her great sails, when Simon Nishikantaput a bullet into the body of the little whale calf. By an almostmiracle of chance, the shot killed the calf. It was equivalent tokilling an elephant with a pea-rifle. Not at once did the calf die. Itmerely immediately ceased its gambols and for a while lay quivering onthe surface of the ocean. The mother was beside it the moment after itwas struck, and to those on board, looking almost directly down upon her,her dismay and alarm were very patent. She would nudge the calf with herhuge shoulder, circle around and around it, then range up alongside andrepeat her nudgings and shoulderings.
All on the _Mary Turner_, fore and aft, lined the rail and stared downapprehensively at the leviathan that was as long as the schooner.
"If she should do to us, sir, what that other one did to the _Essex_,"Dag Daughtry observed to the Ancient Mariner.
"It would be no more than we deserve," was the response. "It wasuncalled-for--a wanton, cruel act."
Michael, aware of the excitement overside but unable to see because ofthe rail, leaped on top of the cabin and at sight of the monster barkeddefiantly. Every eye turned on him in startlement and fear, and Stewardhushed him with a whispered command.
"This is the last time," Grimshaw muttered in a low voice, tense withanger, to Nishikanta. "If ever again, on this voyage, you take a shot ata whale, I'll wring your dirty neck for you. Get me. I mean it. I'llchoke your eye-balls out of you."
The Jew smiled in a sickly way and whined, "There ain't nothing going tohappen. I don't believe that _Essex_ ever was sunk by a whale."
Urged on by its mother, the dying calf made spasmodic efforts to swimthat were futile and caused it to veer and wallow from side to side.
In the course of circling about it, the mother accidentally brushed hershoulder under the port quarter of the _Mary Turner_, and the _MaryTurner_ listed to starboard as her stern was lifted a yard or more. Norwas this unintentional, gentle impact all. The instant after hershoulder had touched, startled by the contact, she flailed out with hertail. The blow smote the rail just for'ard of the fore-shrouds,splintering a gap through it as if it were no more than a cigar-box andcracking the covering board.
That was all, and an entire ship's company stared down in silence andfear at a sea-monster grief-stricken over its dying progeny.
Several times, in the course of an hour, during which the schooner andthe two whales drifted farther and farther apart, the calf strove vainlyto swim. Then it set up a great quivering, which culminated in a wildwallowing and lashing about of its tail.
"It is the death-flurry," said the Ancient Mariner softly.
"By damn, it's dead," was Captain Doane's comment five minutes later."Who'd believe it? A rifle bullet! I wish to heaven we could get halfan hour's breeze of wind to get us out of this neighbourhood."
"A close squeak," said Grimshaw,
Captain Doane shook his head, as his anxious eyes cast aloft to the emptycanvas and quested on over the sea in the hope of wind-ruffles on thewater. But all was glassy calm, each great sea, of all the orderlyprocession of great seas, heaving up, round-topped and mountainous, likeso much quicksilver.
"It's all right," Grimahaw encouraged. "There she goes now, beating itaway from us."
"Of course it's all right, always was all right," Nishikanta bragged, ashe wiped the sweat from his face and neck and looked with the othersafter the departing whale. "You're a fine brave lot, you are, losingyour goat to a fish."
"I noticed your face was less yellow than usual," Grimshaw sneered. "Itmust have gone to your heart."
Captain Doane breathed a great sigh. His relief was too strong to permithim to join in the squabbling.
"You're yellow," Grimshaw went on, "yellow clean through." He nodded hishead toward the Ancient Mariner. "Now there's the real thing as a man.No yellow in him. He never batted an eye, and I reckon he knew moreabout the danger than you did. If I was to choose being wrecked on adesert island with him or you, I'd take him a thousand times first. If--"
But a cry from the sailors interrupted him.
"Merciful God!" Captain Doane breathed aloud.
The great cow whale had turned about, and, on the surface, was chargingstraight back at them. Such was her speed that a bore was raised by hernose like that which a Dreadnought or an Atlantic liner raises on thesea.
"Hold fast, all!" Captain Doane roared.
Every man braced himself for the shock. Henrik Gjertsen, the sailor atthe wheel, spread his legs, crouched down, and stiffened his shouldersand arms to hand-grips on opposite spokes of the wheel. Several of thecrew fled from the waist to the poop, and others of them sprang into themain-rigging. Daughtry, one hand on the rail, with his free arm claspedthe Ancient Mariner around the waist.
All held. The whale struck the _Mary Turner_ just aft of thefore-shroud. A score of things, which no eye could take insimultaneously, happened. A sailor, in the main rigging, carried away aratline in both hands, fell head-downward, and was clutched by an ankleand saved head-downward by a comrade, as the schooner cracked andshuddered, uplifted on the port side, and was flung down on her starboardside till the ocean poured level over her rail. Michael, on the smoothroof of the cabin, slithered down the steep slope to starboard anddisappeared, clawing and snarling, into the runway. The port shrouds ofthe foremast carried away at the chain-plates, and the fore-topmastleaned over drunkenly to starboard.
"My word," quoth the Ancient Mariner. "We certainly felt that."
"Mr. Jackson," Captain Doane commanded the mate, "will you sound thewell."
The mate obeyed, although he kept an anxious eye on the whale, which hadgone off at a tangent and was smoking away to the eastward.
"You see, that's what you get," Grimshaw snarled at Nishikanta.
Nishikanta nodded, as he wiped the sweat away, and muttered, "And I'msatisfied. I got all I want. I didn't think a whale had it in it. I'llnever do it again."
"Maybe you'll never have the chance," the captain retorted. "We're notdone with this one yet. The one that charged the _Essex_ made chargeafter charge, and I guess whale nature hasn't changed any in the last fewyears."
"Dry as a bone, sir," Mr. Jackson reported the result of his sounding.
"There she turns," Daughtry called out.
Half a mile away, the whale circled about sharply and charged back.
"Stand from under for'ard there!" Captain Doane shouted to one of thesailors who had just emerged from the forecastle scuttle, sea-bag inhand, and over whom the fore-topmast was swaying giddily.
"He's packed for the get-away," Daughtry murmured to the Ancient Mariner."Like a rat leaving a ship."
"We're all rats," was the reply. "I learned just that when I was a ratamong the mangy rats of the poor-farm."
By this time, all men on board had communicated to Michael theircontagion of excitement and fear. Back on top of the cabin so that hemight see, he snarled at the cow whale when the men seized fresh gripsagainst the impending shock and when he saw her close at hand andoncoming.
The _Mary Turner_ was struck aft of the m
izzen shrouds. As she washurled down to starboard, whither Michael was ignominiously flung, thecrack of shattered timbers was plainly heard. Henrik Gjertsen, at thewheel, clutching the wheel with all his strength, was spun through theair as the wheel was spun by the fling of the rudder. He fetched upagainst Captain Doane, whose grip had been torn loose from the rail. Bothmen crumpled down on deck with the wind knocked out of them. Nishikantaleaned cursing against the side of the cabin, the nails of both handstorn off at the quick by the breaking of his grip on the rail.
While Daughtry was passing a turn of rope around the Ancient Mariner andthe mizzen rigging and giving the turn to him to hold, Captain Doanecrawled gasping to the rail and dragged himself erect.
"That fetched her," he whispered huskily to the mate, hand pressed to hisside to control his pain. "Sound the well again, and keep on sounding."
More of the sailors took advantage of the interval to rush for'ard underthe toppling fore-topmast, dive into the forecastle, and hastily packtheir sea-bags. As Ah Moy emerged from the steerage with his own rotundsea-bag, Daughtry dispatched Kwaque to pack the belongings of both ofthem.
"Dry as a bone, sir," came the mate's report.
"Keep on sounding, Mr. Jackson," the captain ordered, his voice alreadystronger as he recovered from the shock of his collision with thehelmsman. "Keep right on sounding. Here she comes again, and theschooner ain't built that'd stand such hammering."
By this time Daughtry had Michael tucked under one arm, his free armready to anticipate the next crash by swinging on to the rigging.
In making its circle to come back, the cow lost her bearings sufficientlyto miss the stern of the _Mary Turner_ by twenty feet. Nevertheless, thebore of her displacement lifted the schooner's stern gently and made herdip her bow to the sea in a stately curtsey.
"If she'd a-hit . . . " Captain Doane murmured and ceased.
"It'd a-ben good night," Daughtry concluded for him. "She's a-knockedour stern clean off of us, sir."
Again wheeling, this time at no more than two hundred yards, the whalecharged back, not completing her semi-circle sufficiently, so that shebore down upon the schooner's bow from starboard. Her back hit the stemand seemed just barely to scrape the martingale, yet the _Mary Turner_sat down till the sea washed level with her stern-rail. Nor was thisall. Martingale, bob-stays and all parted, as well as all starboardstays to the bowsprit, so that the bowsprit swung out to port at rightangles and uplifted to the drag of the remaining topmast stays. Thetopmast anticked high in the air for a space, then crashed down to deck,permitting the bowsprit to dip into the sea, go clear with the butt of itof the forecastle head, and drag alongside.
"Shut up that dog!" Nishikanta ordered Daughtry savagery. "If you don't. . . "
Michael, in Steward's arms, was snarling and growling intimidatingly, notmerely at the cow whale but at all the hostile and menacing universe thathad thrown panic into the two-legged gods of his floating world.
"Just for that," Daughtry snarled back, "I'll let 'm sing. You made thismess, and if you lift a hand to my dog you'll miss seeing the end of themess you started, you dirty pawnbroker, you."
"Perfectly right, perfectly right," the Ancient Mariner noddedapprobation. "Do you think, steward, you could get a width of canvas, ora blanket, or something soft and broad with which to replace this rope?It cuts me too sharply in the spot where my three ribs are missing."
Daughtry thrust Michael into the old man's arm.
"Hold him, sir," the steward said. "If that pawnbroker makes a moveagainst Killeny Boy, spit in his face, bite him, anything. I'll be backin a jiffy, sir, before he can hurt you and before the whale can hit usagain. And let Killeny Boy make all the noise he wants. One hair ofhim's worth more than a world-full of skunks of money-lenders."
Daughtry dashed into the cabin, came back with a pillow and three sheets,and, using the first as a pad and knotting the last together in swiftweaver's knots, he left the Ancient Mariner safe and soft and tookMichael back into his own arms.
"She's making water, sir," the mate called. "Six inches--no, seveninches, sir."
There was a rush of sailors across the wreckage of the fore-topmast tothe forecastle to pack their bags.
"Swing out that starboard boat, Mr. Jackson," the captain commanded,staring after the foaming course of the cow as she surged away for afresh onslaught. "But don't lower it. Hold it overside in the falls, orthat damned fish'll smash it. Just swing it out, ready and waiting, letthe men get their bags, then stow food and water aboard of her."
Lashings were cast off the boat and the falls attached, when the men fledto holding-vantage just ere the whale arrived. She struck the _MaryTurner_ squarely amidships on the port beam, so that, from the poop, onesaw, as well as heard, her long side bend and spring back like a limberfabric. The starboard rail buried under the sea as the schooner heeledto the blow, and, as she righted with a violent lurch, the water swashedacross the deck to the knees of the sailors about the boat and spoutedout of the port scuppers.
"Heave away!" Captain Doane ordered from the poop. "Up with her! Swingher out! Hold your turns! Make fast!"
The boat was outboard, its gunwale resting against the _Mary Turner's_rail.
"Ten inches, sir, and making fast," was the mate's information, as hegauged the sounding-rod.
"I'm going after my tools," Captain Doane announced, as he started forthe cabin. Half into the scuttle, he paused to add with a sneer forNishikanta's benefit, "And for my one chronometer."
"A foot and a half, and making," the mate shouted aft to him.
"We'd better do some packing ourselves," Grimshaw, following on thecaptain, said to Nishikanta.
"Steward," Nishikanta said, "go below and pack my bedding. I'll takecare of the rest."
"Mr. Nishikanta, you can go to hell, sir, and all the rest as well," wasDaughtry's quiet response, although in the same breath he was saying,respectfully and assuringly, to the Ancient Mariner: "You hold Killeny,sir. I'll take care of your dunnage. Is there anything special you wantto save, sir?"
Jackson joined the four men below, and as the five of them, in haste andtrepidation, packed articles of worth and comfort, the _Mary Turner_ wasstruck again. Caught below without warning, all were flung fiercely toport and from Simon Nishikanta's room came wailing curses of announcementof the hurt to his ribs against his bunk-rail. But this was drowned by aprodigious smashing and crashing on deck.
"Kindling wood--there won't be anything else left of her," Captain Doanecommented in the ensuing calm, as he crept gingerly up the companionwaywith his chronometer cuddled on an even keel to his breast.
Placing it in the custody of a sailor, he returned below and was helpedup with his sea-chest by the steward. In turn, he helped the steward upwith the Ancient Mariner's sea-chest. Next, aided by anxious sailors, heand Daughtry dropped into the lazarette through the cabin floor, andbegan breaking out and passing up a stream of supplies--cases of salmonand beef, of marmalade and biscuit, of butter and preserved milk, and ofall sorts of the tinned, desiccated, evaporated, and condensed stuff thatof modern times goes down to the sea in ships for the nourishment of men.
Daughtry and the captain emerged last from the cabin, and both staredupward for a moment at the gaps in the slender, sky-scraping top-hamper,where, only minutes before, the main- and mizzen-topmasts had been. Asecond moment they devoted to the wreckage of the same on deck--themizzen-topmast, thrust through the spanker and supported vertically bythe stout canvas, thrashing back and forth with each thrash of the sail,the main-topmast squarely across the ruined companionway to the steerage.
While the mother-whale expressing her bereavement in terms of violenceand destruction, was withdrawing the necessary distance for anothercharge, all hands of the _Mary Turner_ gathered about the starboard boatswung outboard ready for lowering. A respectable hill of case goods,water-kegs, and personal dunnage was piled on the deck alongside. Aglance at this, and at the many men of fore and aft, demo
nstrated that itwas to be a perilously overloaded boat.
"We want the sailors with us, at any rate--they can row," said SimonNishikanta.
"But do we want you?" Grimshaw queried gloomily. "You take up too muchroom, for your size, and you're a beast anyway."
"I guess I'll be wanted," the pawnbroker observed, as he jerked open hisshirt, tearing out the four buttons in his impetuousness and showing aColt's .44 automatic, strapped in its holster against the bare skin ofhis side under his left arm, the butt of the weapon most readilyaccessible to any hasty dip of his right hand. "I guess I'll be wanted.But just the same we can dispense with the undesirables."
"If you will have your will," the wheat-farmer conceded sardonically,although his big hand clenched involuntarily as if throttling a throat."Besides, if we should run short of food you will prove desirable--forthe quantity of you, I mean, and not otherwise. Now just who would youconsider undesirable?--the black nigger? He ain't got a gun."
But his pleasantries were cut short by the whale's next attack--anothersmash at the stern that carried away the rudder and destroyed thesteering gear.
"How much water?" Captain Doane queried of the mate.
"Three feet, sir--I just sounded," came the answer. "I think, sir, itwould be advisable to part-load the boat; then, right after the next timethe whale hits us, lower away on the run, chuck the rest of the dunnagein, and ourselves, and get clear."
Captain Doane nodded.
"It will be lively work," he said. "Stand ready, all of you. Steward,you jump aboard first and I'll pass the chronometer to you."
Nishikanta bellicosely shouldered his vast bulk up to the captain, openedhis shirt, and exposed his revolver.
"There's too many for the boat," he said, "and the steward's one of 'emthat don't go along. Get that. Hold it in your head. The steward's oneof 'em that don't go along."
Captain Doane coolly surveyed the big automatic, while at the fore of hisconsciousness burned a vision of his flat buildings in San Francisco.
He shrugged his shoulders. "The boat would be overloaded, with all thistruck, anyway. Go ahead, if you want to make it your party, but justbear in mind that I'm the navigator, and that, if you ever want to layeyes on your string of pawnshops, you'd better see that gentle care istaken of me.--Steward!"
Daughtry stepped close.
"There won't be room for you . . . and for one or two others, I'm sorryto say."
"Glory be!" said Daughtry. "I was just fearin' you'd be wantin' mealong, sir.--Kwaque, you take 'm my fella dunnage belong me, put 'm inother fella boat along other side."
While Kwaque obeyed, the mate sounded the well for the last time,reporting three feet and a half, and the lighter freightage of thestarboard boat was tossed in by the sailors.
A rangy, gangly, Scandinavian youth of a sailor, droop-shouldered, sixfeet six and slender as a lath, with pallid eyes of palest blue and skinand hair attuned to the same colour scheme, joined Kwaque in his work.
"Here, you Big John," the mate interfered. "This is your boat. You workhere."
The lanky one smiled in embarrassment as he haltingly explained: "I tankI lak go along cooky."
"Sure, let him go, the more the easier," Nishikanta took charge of thesituation. "Anybody else?"
"Sure," Dag Daughtry sneered to his face. "I reckon what's left of thebeer goes with my boat . . . unless you want to argue the matter."
"For two cents--" Nishikanta spluttered in affected rage.
"Not for two billion cents would you risk a scrap with me, youmoney-sweater, you," was Daughtry's retort. "You've got their goats, butI've got your number. Not for two billion billion cents would you exciteme into callin' it right now.--Big John! Just carry that case of beeracross, an' that half case, and store in my boat.--Nishikanta, just startsomething, if you've got the nerve."
Simon Nishikanta did not dare, nor did he know what to do; but he wassaved from his perplexity by the shout:
"Here she comes!"
All rushed to holding-ground, and held, while the whale broke moretimbers and the _Mary Turner_ rolled sluggishly down and back again.
"Lower away! On the run! Lively!"
Captain Doane's orders were swiftly obeyed. The starboard boat, fendedoff by sailors, rose and fell in the water alongside while the remainderof the dunnage and provisions showered into her.
"Might as well lend a hand, sir, seein' you're bent on leaving in such ahurry," said Daughtry, taking the chronometer from Captain Doane's handand standing ready to pass it down to him as soon as he was in the boat.
"Come on, Greenleaf," Grimshaw called up to the Ancient Mariner.
"No, thanking you very kindly, sir," came the reply. "I think there'llbe more room in the other boat."
"We want the cook!" Nishikanta cried out from the stern sheets. "Comeon, you yellow monkey! Jump in!"
Little old shrivelled Ah Moy debated. He visibly thought, although noneknew the intrinsicness of his thinking as he stared at the gun of the fatpawnbroker and at the leprosy of Kwaque and Daughtry, and weighed the oneagainst the other and tossed the light and heavy loads of the two boatsinto the balance.
"Me go other boat," said Ah Moy, starting to drag his bag away across thedeck.
"Cast off," Captain Doane commanded.
Scraps, the big Newfoundland puppy, who had played and pranced aboutthrough all the excitement, seeing so many of the _Mary Turner's_ humansin the boat alongside, sprang over the rail, low and close to the water,and landed sprawling on the mass of sea-bags and goods cases.
The boot rocked, and Nishikanta, his automatic in his hand, cried out:
"Back with him! Throw him on board!"
The sailors obeyed, and the astounded Scraps, after a brief flightthrough the air, found himself arriving on his back on the _MaryTurner's_ deck. At any rate, he took it for no more than a rough joke,and rolled about ecstatically, squirming vermicularly, in anticipation ofwhat new delights of play were to be visited upon him. He reached out,with an enticing growl of good fellowship, for Michael, who was now freeon deck, and received in return a forbidding and crusty snarl.
"Guess we'll have to add him to our collection, eh, sir?" Daughtryobserved, sparing a moment to pat reassurance on the big puppy's head andbeing rewarded with a caressing lick on his hand from the puppy'sblissful tongue.
No first-class ship's steward can exist without possessing a more thanaverage measure of executive ability. Dag Daughtry was a first-classship's steward. Placing the Ancient Mariner in a nook of safety, andsetting Big John to unlashing the remaining boat and hooking on thefalls, he sent Kwaque into the hold to fill kegs of water from the scantremnant of supply, and Ah Moy to clear out the food in the galley.
The starboard boat, cluttered with men, provisions, and property andbeing rapidly rowed away from the danger centre, which was the _MaryTurner_, was scarcely a hundred yards away, when the whale, missing theschooner clean, turned at full speed and close range, churning the water,and all but collided with the boat. So near did she come that the rowerson the side next to her pulled in their oars. The surge she raised,heeled the loaded boat gunwale under, so that a degree of water wasshipped ere it righted. Nishikanta, automatic still in hand, standing upin the sternsheets by the comfortable seat he had selected for himself,was staggered by the lurch of the boat. In his instinctive, spasmodiceffort to maintain balance, he relaxed his clutch on the pistol, whichfell into the sea.
"_Ha-ah_!" Daughtry girded. "What price Nishikanta? I got his number,and he's lost you fellows' goats. He's your meat now. Easy meat? Ishould say! And when it comes to the eating, eat him first. Sure, he'sa skunk, and will taste like one, but many's the honest man that's eatenskunk and pulled through a tight place. But you'd better soak 'im allnight in salt water, first."
Grimshaw, whose seat in the sternsheets was none of the best, grasped thesituation simultaneously with Daughtry, and, with a quick upstanding, andhooking out-reach of hand, caught the fat pawnbroker aroun
d the back ofthe neck, and with anything but gentle suasion jerked him half into theair and flung him face downward on the bottom boards.
"Ha-ah!" said Daughtry across the hundred yards of ocean.
Next, and without hurry, Grimshaw took the more comfortable seat forhimself.
"Want to come along?" he called to Daughtry.
"No, thank you, sir," was the latter's reply. "There's too many of us,an' we'll make out better in the other boat."
With some bailing, and with others bending to the oars, the boat rowedfrantically away, while Daughtry took Ah Moy with him down into thelazarette beneath the cabin floor and broke out and passed up moreprovisions.
It was when he was thus below that the cow grazed the schooner justfor'ard of amidships on the port side, lashed out with her mighty tail asshe sounded, and ripped clean away the chain plates and rail of themizzen-shrouds. In the next roll of the huge, glassy sea, the mizzen-mast fell overside.
"My word, some whale," Daughtry said to Ah Moy, as they emerged from thecabin companionway and gazed at this latest wreckage.
Ah Moy found need to get more food from the galley, when Daughtry,Kwaque, and Big John swung their weight on the falls, one at a time, andhoisted the port boat, one end at a time, over the rail and swung herout.
"We'll wait till the next smash, then lower away, throw everything in,an' get outa this," the steward told the Ancient Mariner. "Lots of time.The schooner'll sink no faster when she's awash than she's sinkin' now."
Even as he spoke, the scuppers were nearly level with the ocean, and herrolling in the big sea was sluggish.
"Hey!" he called with sudden forethought across the widening stretch ofsea to Captain Doane. "What's the course to the Marquesas? Right now?And how far away, sir?"
"Nor'-nor'-east-quarter-east!" came the faint reply. "Will fetch Nuka-Hiva! About two hundred miles! Haul on the south-east trade with a goodfull and you'll make it!"
"Thank you, sir," was the steward's acknowledgment, ere he ran aft,disrupted the binnacle, and carried the steering compass back to theboat.
Almost, from the whale's delay in renewing her charging, did they thinkshe had given over. And while they waited and watched her rolling on thesea an eighth of a mile away, the _Mary Turner_ steadily sank.
"We might almost chance it," Daughtry was debating aloud to Big John,when a new voice entered the discussion.
"Cocky!--Cocky!" came plaintive tones from below out of the steeragecompanion.
"Devil be damned!" was the next, uttered in irritation and anger. "Devilbe damned! Devil be damned!"
"Of course not," was Daughtry's judgment, as he dashed across the deck,crawled through the confusion of the main-topmast and its many stays thatblocked the way, and found the tiny, white morsel of life perched on abunk-edge, ruffling its feathers, erecting and flattening its rosy crest,and cursing in honest human speech the waywardness of the world and ofships and humans upon the sea.
The cockatoo stepped upon Daughtry's inviting index finger, swiftlyascended his shirt sleeve, and, on his shoulder, claws sunk into theflimsy shirt fabric till they hurt the flesh beneath, leaned head to earand uttered in gratitude and relief, and in self-identification: "Cocky.Cocky."
"You son of a gun," Daughtry crooned.
"Glory be!" Cooky replied, in tones so like Daughtry's as to startle him.
"You son of a gun," Daughtry repeated, cuddling his cheek and ear againstthe cockatoo's feathered and crested head. "And some folks thinks it'sonly folks that count in this world."
Still the whale delayed, and, with the ocean washing their toes on thelevel deck, Daughtry ordered the boat lowered away. Ah Moy was eager inhis haste to leap into the bow. Nor was Daughtry's judgment correct thatthe little Chinaman's haste was due to fear of the sinking ship. What AhMoy sought was the place in the boat remotest from Kwaque and thesteward.
Shoving clear, they roughly stored the supplies and dunnage out of theway of the thwarts and took their places, Ah Moy pulling bow-oar, next inorder Big John and Kwaque, with Daughtry (Cocky still perched on hisshoulder) at stroke. On top of the dunnage, in the sternsheets, Michaelgazed wistfully at the _Mary Turner_ and continued to snarl crustily atScraps who idiotically wanted to start a romp. The Ancient Mariner stoodup at the steering sweep and gave the order, when all was ready, for thefirst dip of the oars.
A growl and a bristle from Michael warned them that the whale was notonly coming but was close upon them. But it was not charging. Instead,it circled slowly about the schooner as if examining its antagonist.
"I'll bet it's head's sore from all that banging, an' it's beginnin' tofeel it," Daughtry grinned, chiefly for the purpose of keeping hiscomrades unafraid.
Barely had they rowed a dozen strokes, when an exclamation from Big Johnled them to follow his gaze to the schooners forecastle-head, where theforecastle cat flashed across in pursuit of a big rat. Other rats theysaw, evidently driven out of their lairs by the rising water.
"We just can't leave that cat behind," Daughtry soliloquized insuggestive tones.
"Certainly not," the Ancient Mariner responded swinging his weight on thesteering-sweep and heading the boat back.
Twice the whale gently rolled them in the course of its leisurelycircling, ere they bent to their oars again and pulled away. Of them thewhale seemed to take no notice. It was from the huge thing, theschooner, that death had been wreaked upon her calf; and it was upon theschooner that she vented the wrath of her grief.
Even as they pulled away, the whale turned and headed across the ocean.At a half-mile distance she curved about and charged back.
"With all that water in her, the schooner'll have a real kick-back in herwhen she's hit," Daughtry said. "Lordy me, rest on your oars an' watch."
Delivered squarely amidships, it was the hardest blow the _Mary Turner_had received. Stays and splinters of rail flew in the air as she rolledso far over as to expose half her copper wet-glistening in the sun. Asshe righted sluggishly, the mainmast swayed drunkenly in the air but didnot fall.
"A knock-out!" Daughtry cried, at sight of the whale flurrying the waterwith aimless, gigantic splashings. "It must a-smashed both of 'em."
"Schooner he finish close up altogether," Kwaque observed, as the _MaryTurner's_ rail disappeared.
Swiftly she sank, and no more than a matter of moments was it when thestump of her mainmast was gone. Remained only the whale, floating andfloundering, on the surface of the sea.
"It's nothing to brag about," Daughtry delivered himself of the _MaryTurner's_ epitaph. "Nobody'd believe us. A stout little craft like thatsunk, deliberately sunk, by an old cow-whale! No, sir. I never believedthat old moss-back in Honolulu, when he claimed he was a survivor of thesinkin' of the _Essex_, an' no more will anybody believe me."
"The pretty schooner, the pretty clever craft," mourned the AncientMariner. "Never were there more dainty and lovable topmasts on a three-masted schooner, and never was there a three-masted schooner that workedlike the witch she was to windward."
Dag Daughtry, who had kept always footloose and never married, surveyedthe boat-load of his responsibilities to which he was anchored--Kwaque,the Black Papuan monstrosity whom he had saved from the bellies of hisfellows; Ah Moy, the little old sea-cook whose age was problematical onlyby decades; the Ancient Mariner, the dignified, the beloved, and therespected; gangly Big John, the youthful Scandinavian with the inches ofa giant and the mind of a child; Killeny Boy, the wonder of dogs; Scraps,the outrageously silly and fat-rolling puppy; Cocky, the white-featheredmite of life, imperious as a steel-blade and wheedlingly seductive as acharming child; and even the forecastle cat, the lithe and tawny slayerof rats, sheltering between the legs of Ah Moy. And the Marquesas weretwo hundred miles distant full-hauled on the tradewind which had ceasedbut which was as sure to live again as the morning sun in the sky.
The steward heaved a sigh, and whimsically shot into his mind the memory-picture in his nursery-book of the old woman who lived i
n a shoe. Hewiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and wasdimly aware of the area of the numbness that bordered the centre that wassensationless between his eyebrows, as he said:
"Well, children, rowing won't fetch us to the Marquesas. We'll need astretch of wind for that. But it's up to us, right now, to put a mile orso between us an' that peevish old cow. Maybe she'll revive, and maybeshe won't, but just the same I can't help feelin' leary about her."