Either of those terrible wounds had been sufficient to kill, and the two combined had the effect of bringing the whale to a sudden stop, when, with a long expiration, like the escaping steam from a water-loaded syren, he gasped out his life and was still, save for the easy motion communicated to his huge carcass by the waves. So sudden was his death that the usual tremendous convulsion which takes place when these leviathans die was totally absent. As soon as it was evident that he _was_ dead, Mr. Pease, rising to the height of his responsibilities, and realising how short a time was left during which anything might be done, caused two more harpoons to be driven into the whale’s side near the first two, but bridled to the main line. Then allowing about fifty fathoms drift he cut the tow-line, and veering away to the tail succeeded with very great difficulty in getting a hole cut through its thickest part, and the end of the towline rove through it. That accomplished, the boat was hauled back again to a position midway between the whale’s tail and its head, the lines made well fast, and the men told to make themselves as comfortable as circumstances permitted by crouching low in the bottom of the boat, and arranging the sail so as to keep off just a little of the spindrift that was already beginning to fill the air.
It was now quite dark, although but little after noon; the sea was in that curiously undecided state before-mentioned, and the mate knew very well that at any moment the full power of the hurricane might burst upon them. Yet, strange as it may seem to landsmen or even ordinary sailors, he had by no means lost hope, neither had Walter. Both of them knew from long experience, and not theoretically, how splendid a breakwater is made by a dead whale. Both of them had time and time again owed their lives to the shelter afforded by one in the midst of such stupendous seas as are encountered in the Southern Ocean, where unhindered the lone sea sweeps round the globe, and consequently both felt that even in the present apparently hopeless circumstances they might yet be found living when the hurricane had passed and left the ocean bestrewn with the wreckage of many a score of noble ships. I think it is not generally known on land how magical (there is really no other word to describe it) is the power exercised by oil upon the sea. A little oil spilt upon the water during the prevalence of the roughest gale makes a tiny oasis of smoothness, around which the most gigantic waves rear their furious crests in vain in the endeavour to encroach upon it. ‘Oil upon the troubled waters’ has long been a paraphrase for the gentle work of the peacemaker, but it is much more than that--it is a scientific expression of fact; and since shipmasters (being, as I am never weary of pointing out, the most conservative of men) have taken to using oil, as it should be used, for the purpose of stilling the angry waves, the number of shipping disasters that have been averted is past all counting. It is safe to say that if, wherever any breakwater, pier, or similar structure is exposed to the fury of stormy seas, a large perforated pipe were to be laid on the sea-bed a few yards seaward of the foundations and surrounding them, through which in time of storm oil might be pumped at high pressure, we should never have any of those costly works destroyed by the impact of the waves at all; for they (the structures) would be surrounded by a ring fence of smoothness beyond which, no matter how fierce their anger, the great waves could never pass.