“All right, Jacob; when ye’re through put fur the old rondyvoos an’ discharge. I’ll be long ’bout March an’ range fur next cruise. So long. I’m off t’ th’ Bonins full pelt.”
“But, Cap’n Cushing, is ut worth huntin’ up that gauldern spotty beast ’n gettin’ ’tarnally smashed up fur an’ idee? Why caint y’ leave ’im alone? Sure’s deeth he’ll do ye a hurt. Take a fool’s advice, cap’n, ’n let him die ov ole age or accident.”
“Jacob, my man, y’ fergit yerself. When I want yew’re advice, I’ll seek it. Till then don’t ye offer it. Tain’t t’ my likin’, fur I’m accustomed to take no man as my counsellor. So long once more, ’n don’t fergit y’r orders.”
In two strides he reached the top of the companion-ladder, and with that wide-breathed cry of his that we knew so well had summoned his boat. She sprang to the nameless barque’s side like a living thing, Captain Cushing stepped into her, and the queer gam was over. Back alongside he came, standing erect as a monolith in the stern-sheets, and, hardly allowing time for the boat to be hooked on, issued rapid orders for all sail to be made; the helm was put hard up, and away we went N.W. No one ventured an opinion upon this sudden change, but every one looked volumes of inquiry. And no one dared even hint to his fellow the wonder, the painful curiosity, he felt as, day after day, before a strong south-east trade, the Beluga did her steady seven knots an hour, nor stayed for anything. Again and again the cry of “blow” came ringing down from the crows’-nests, and as often as it was heard the old man mounted aloft with his glasses, and stayed until he had apparently satisfied himself of something. But never a halt did we make. No, and as if the very whales themselves knew of our pre-occupation, a school actually rose near and accompanied us for a whole watch, gambolling along massively within gun-shot on either side. They might as well have been a thousand miles away for all the notice the old man took of them. He just leaned upon the weather-rail, gazing with expressionless face at the unchanging ring of the horizon--a fathomless enigma to all of us. The proximity of those whales, however, troubled the officers more than anything else had done, and it took all their inbred terror of the old man to keep them from breaking into open mutiny. Even among us, who had little interest in the voyage from a monetary point of view, and to whom the capture of whales only meant a furious outburst of the hardest work, the feeling of indignation at the loss of so grand an opportunity was exceedingly hard to bear.
