and heavy ammunition box, all of which were soon stowed away with their
oilskins and mittens in the boats.
The sailing-master gave his last orders, and away we went, pulling three pairs of
oars to gain our positions. We were in the weather boat, and so had a longer pull
than the others. The first, second, and third lee boats soon had all sail set and were
running off to the southward and westward with the wind beam, while the
schooner was running off to leeward of them, so that in case of accident the boats
would have fair wind home.
It was a glorious morning, but our boat-steerer shook his head ominously as he
glanced at the rising sun and prophetically muttered: “Red sun in the morning,
sailor take warning.” The sun had an angry look, and a few light, fleecy “niggerheads”
in that quarter seemed abashed and frightened and soon disappeared.
Away off to the northward Cape Jerimo reared its black, forbidding head like
some huge monster rising from the deep. The winter’s snow, not yet entirely
dissipated by the sun, covered it in patches of glistening white, over which the
light wind swept on its way out to sea. Huge gulls rose slowly, fluttering their
wings in the light breeze and striking their webbed feet on the surface of the water
for over half a mile before they could leave it. Hardly had the patter, patter died
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15
away when a flock of sea quail rose, and with whistling wings flew away to
windward, where members of a large band of whales were disporting themselves,
their blowings sounding like the exhaust of steam engines. The harsh, discordant
cries of a sea-parrot grated unpleasantly on the ear, and set half a dozen alert in a
small band of seals that were ahead of us. Away they went, breaching and
jumping entirely out of water. A sea-gull with slow, deliberate flight and long,
majestic curves circled round us, and as a reminder of home a little English
sparrow perched impudently on the fo’castle head, and, cocking his head on one
side, chirped merrily. The boats were soon among the seals, and the bang! bang!
of the guns could be heard from down to leeward.
The wind was slowly rising, and by three o’clock as, with a dozen seals in our
boat, we were deliberating whether to go on or turn back, the recall flag was run
up at the schooner’s mizzen — a sure sign that with the rising wind the barometer
was falling and that our sailingmaster was getting anxious for the welfare of the
boats.
Away we went before the wind with a single reef in our sail. With clenched teeth
sat the boat-steerer, grasping the steering oar firmly with both hands, his restless
eyes on the alert — a glance at the schooner ahead, as we rose on a sea, another at
the mainsheet, and then one astern where the dark ripple of the wind on the water
told him of a coming puff or a large white-cap that threatened to overwhelm us.
The waves were holding high carnival, performing the strangest antics, as with
wild glee they danced along in fierce pursuit-now up, now down, here, there, and
everywhere, until some great sea of liquid green with its milk-white crest of foam
rose from the ocean’s throbbing bosom and drove the others from view. But only
for a moment, for again under new forms they reappeared. In the sun’s path they
wandered, where every ripple, great or small, every little spit or spray looked like
molten silver, where the water lost its dark green color and became a dazzling,
silvery flood, only to vanish and become a wild waste of sullen turbulence, each
dark foreboding sea rising and breaking, then rolling on again. The dash, the
sparkle, the silvery light soon vanished with the sun, which became obscured by
black clouds that were rolling swiftly in from the west, northwest; apt heralds of
the coming storm.
We soon reached the schooner and found ourselves the last aboard. In a few
minutes the seals were skinned, boats and decks washed, and we were down
below by the roaring fo’castle fire, with a wash, change of clothes, and a hot,
substantial supper before us. Sail had been put on the schooner, as we had a run of
seventy-five miles to make to the southward before morning, so as to get in the
midst of the seals, out of which we had strayed during the last two days’ hunting.
We had the first watch from eight to midnight. The wind was soon blowing half a
gale, and our sailing-master expected little sleep that night as he paced up and
down the poop. The topsails were soon clewed up and made fast, then the flying
jib run down and furled. Quite a sea was rolling by this time, occasionally
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16
breaking over the decks, flooding them and threatening to smash the boats. At six
bells we were ordered to turn them over and put on storm lashings. This occupied
us till eight bells, when we were relieved by the mid-watch. I was the last to go
below, doing so just as the watch on deck was furling the spanker. Below all were
asleep except our green hand, the “bricklayer,” who was dying of consumption.
The wildly dancing movements of the sea lamp cast a pale, flickering light
through the fo’castle and turned to golden honey the drops of water on the yellow
oilskins. In all the corners dark shadows seemed to come and go, while up in the
eyes of her, beyond the pall bits, descending from deck to deck, where they
seemed to lurk like some dragon at the cavern’s mouth, it was dark as Erebus.
Now and again, the light seemed to penetrate for a moment as the schooner rolled
heavier than usual, only to recede, leaving it darker and blacker than before. The
roar of the wind through the rigging came to the ear muffled like the distant
rumble of a train crossing a trestle or the surf on the beach, while the loud crash of
the seas on her weather bow seemed almost to rend the beams and planking
asunder as it resounded through the fo’castle. The creaking and groaning of the
timbers, stanchions, and bulkheads, as the strain the vessel was undergoing was
felt, served to drown the groans of the dying man as he tossed uneasily in his
bunk. The working of the foremast against the deck beams caused a shower of
flaky powder to fall, and sent another sound mingling with the tumultous storm.
Small cascades of water streamed from the pall bits from the fo’castle head above,
and, joining issue with the streams from the wet oilskins, ran along the floor and
disappeared aft into the main hold.
At two bells in the middle watch-that is, in land parlance one o’clock in the
morning-the order was roared out on the fo’castle: “All hands on deck and shorten
sail!”
Then the sleepy sailors tumbled out of their bunk and into their clothes, oil-skins,
and sea-boots and up on deck. ‘Tis when that order comes on cold, blustering
nights that “Jack” grimly mutters: “Who would not sell a farm and go to sea?”
It was on deck that the force of the wind could be fully appreciated, especially
after leaving the stifling fo’castle. It seemed to stand up against you like a wall,
making it almost impossible to move on the heaving decks or to breathe as the
fierce gusts came dashing by. The schooner was hove to under jib, foresail, and
mainsail. We proceeded to lower the foresail and make it fast. The night was dark,
greatly impeding our labor. Still, though not a star or the moon could pierce the
black masses of storm clouds that obscured the sky as they swept along before the
gale, nature aided us in a measure, A soft light emanated from the movement of
the ocean. Each mighty sea, all phosphorescent and glowing with the tiny lights of
myriads of animalculae, threatened to overwhelm us with a deluge of fire. Higher
and higher, thinner and thinner, the crest grew as it began to curve and overtop
preparatory to breaking, until with a roar it fell over the bulwarks, a mass of soft
glowing light and tons of water which sent the sailors sprawling in all directions
and left in each nook and cranny little specks of light that glowed and trembled
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17
till the next sea washed them away, depositing new ones in their places.
Sometimes several seas following each other with great rapidity and thundering
down on our decks filled them full to the bulwarks, but soon they were discharged
through the lee scuppers.
To reef the mainsail we were forced to run off before the gale under the single