Great Stone of Sardis by Frank Richard Stockton
CHAPTER XVII. CAPTAIN HUBBELL DECLINES TO GO WHALING
The most impatient person on board the Dipsey was Captain Jim Hubbell.Sarah Block was also very anxious to go home as soon as matters couldbe arranged for the return journey, and she talked a great deal of theterrible fate which would be sure to overtake them if they should be sounfortunate as to stay until the season of the arctic night; but, afterall, she was not as impatient as Captain Hubbell. She simply wantedto go home; but he not only greatly desired to return to his wife andfamily, but he wanted to do something else before he started south; hewanted to go whaling. He considered himself the only man in the wholeworld who had a chance to go whaling, and he chafed as he thought of thehindrances which Mr. Gibbs was continually placing in the way of this,the grandest of all sports.
Mr. Gibbs was a mild man, and rather a quiet one; but he thoroughlyunderstood the importance of the investigations he was pursuing in thepolar sea, and placed full value upon the opportunity which had cometo him of examining the wonders of a region hitherto locked up fromcivilized man. Captain Hubbell was astonished to find that Mr. Gibbswas as hard and unyielding as an iceberg during his explorations andsoundings. It was of no use to talk to him of whaling; he had workbefore him, and he must do it.
But the time came when Mr. Gibbs relented. The Dipsey had sailed aroundthe whole boundary of the polar sea; observations, surveys, and maps hadbeen made, and the general geography of the region had been fairly welldetermined. There still remained some weeks of the arctic day, and itwas desirable that they should begin their return journey during thattime; so Mr. Gibbs informed Captain Jim that if he wanted to do a littlewhaling, he would like him to lose no time.
Almost from the time of their arrival in the polar sea the subject ofwhales had greatly interested everybody on the Dipsey. Even Rovinski,who had been released from his confinement after a few days, becausehe had really committed no actual crime except that of indulging inoverleaping ambition, had spent every available minute of leisure inlooking for whales. It was strange that nothing in this Northern regioninterested the people on the Dipsey (with the sole exception of Mr.Gibbs) so much as these great fish, which seemed to be the only visibleinhabitants of the polar solitudes. There were probably whitebears somewhere on the icy shores about them, but they never showedthemselves; and if birds were there, they did not fly over that sea.
There was reason to suppose that there were a good many whales in thepolar sea. Wherever our party sailed, lay to, or anchored for a time,they were very sure, before long, to see a whale curving his shiningblack back into the light, or sending two beautiful jets of water upinto the air. Whenever a whale was seen, somebody on board was sure toremark that these creatures in this part of the world seemed to be verytame. It was not at all uncommon to see one disport himself at no greatdistance from the vessel for an hour or more.
"If I could get among a school of whales anywhere around Nantucket andfind 'em as tame as these fellers," said Captain Jim, "I'd give a boomto the whale-oil business that it hasn't had for forty years."
But not long before Mr. Gibbs told the captain that he might go whalingif he felt like it, the old sailor had experienced a change of mind. Hehad become a most ardent student of whales. In his very circumscribedexperience when a young man he had seen whales, but they had generallybeen a long way off; and as the old-fashioned method of rowing afterthem in boats had even then been abandoned in favor of killing them bymeans of the rifled cannon, Captain Hubbell had not seen very much ofthese creatures until they had been towed alongside. But now he couldstudy whales at his leisure. It was seldom that he had to wait very longbefore he would see one near enough for him to examine it with a glass,and he never failed to avail himself of such opportunities.
The consequence of this constant and careful inspection was theconclusion in Captain Hubbell's mind that there was only one whale inthe polar sea. He had noticed, and others had noticed, that they neversaw two at once, and the captain had used his glass so often and so wellthat one morning he stamped his foot upon the deck and said to Sammy:
"I believe that's the same whale over and over and over ag'in. Iknow him like a book; he has his ways and his manners, and it isn'treasonable to suppose that every whale has the same ways and manners. Hecomes just so near the vessel, and then he stops and blows. Then he sunshis back for a while, and then he throws up his flukes and sounds. Hedoes that as regular as if he was a polar clock. I know the very shapeof his flukes; and two or three days ago, as he was soundin', I thoughtthat the tip of the upper one looked as if it had been damaged--as if hehad broken it floppin' about in some tight place; and ever since, whenI have seen a whale, I have looked for the tip of that upper fluke, andthere's that same old break. Every time I have looked I have found it.It can't be that there are a lot o' whales in here and each one of 'emwith a battered fluke."
"That does look sort o' queer," said Sammy, reflectively.
"Sammy Block," said Captain Jim, impressively, "it's my opinion thatthere's only one whale in this here polar sea; an', more than that,it's my opinion that there's only one whale in this world, an' that thatfeller we've seen is the one! Samuel Block, he's the last whale in thewhole world! Now you know that I wanted to go a-whalin'--that's naturalenough--but since Mr. Gibbs has got through, and has said that I couldtake this vessel an' go a-whalin' if I wanted to--which would be easyenough, for we have got guns aboard which would kill any right-whale--Idon't want to go. I don't want to lay on my dyin' bed an' think thatI'm the man that killed the last whale in the world. I'm commandin' thisvessel, and I sail it wherever Mr. Gibbs tells me to sail it; but if hewants the bones of a whale to take home as a curiosity, an' tells me tosail this vessel after that whale, I won't do it."
"I'm with you there," said Sammy. "I have been thinkin' while you wastalkin', an' it's my opinion that it's not only the last whale in theworld, but it's purty nigh tame. I believe it's so glad to see someother movin' creature in this lonely sea that it wants to keep companywith us all the time. No, sir, I wouldn't have anything to do withkillin' that fish!"
The opinions of the captain and Sammy were now communicated to the restof the company on board, and nearly all of them thought that they hadhad such an idea themselves. The whale certainly looked very familiarevery time he showed himself.
To Mr. Gibbs this lonely creature, if he were such, now became an objectof intense interest. It was evidently a specimen of the right-whale,once common in the Northern seas, skeletons of which could be seen inmany museums. Nothing would be gained to science by his capture, and Mr.Gibbs agreed with the others that it would be a pity to harm this, thelast of his race.
In thinking and talking over the matter Mr. Gibbs formed a theory whichhe thought would explain the presence of this solitary whale in thepolar sea. He thought it very likely that it had gotten under the iceand had pursued its northern journey very much as the Dipsey had pursuedhers, and had at last emerged, as she had, into the polar sea at a placeperhaps as shallow as that where the submarine vessel came out fromunder the ice.
"And if that's the case," said Captain Hubbell, "it is ten to one thathe has not been able to get out again, and has found himself herecaught just as if he was in a trap. Fishes don't like to swim into tightplaces. They may do it once, but they don't want to do it again. It isthis disposition that makes 'em easy to catch in traps. I believe youare right, Mr. Gibbs. I believe this whale has got in here and can't getout--or, at least, he thinks he can't--and nobody knows how long it'sbeen since he first got in. It may have been a hundred years ago.There's plenty o' little fish in these waters for him to eat, and he'sthe only one there is to feed."
The thought that in this polar sea with themselves was a great whale,which was probably here simply because he could not get out, had adepressing effect upon the minds of the party on the Dipsey. There wasperhaps no real reason why they should fear the fate of the great fish,but, after all, this subject was one which should be very seriouslyconsidered. The latter part of their pa
It was the general opinion that if they would sail a considerabledistance to the eastward they could not fail to find a deep channel bywhich the waters of this sea communicated with Baffin's Bay; but in thiscase they would be obliged to leave the line of longitude by which theyhad safely travelled from Cape Tariff to the pole and seek another routesouthward, along some other line, which would end their journey theyknew not where.
"I am cold," said Sarah Block. "At first I got along all right, withall these furs, and goin' down-stairs every time I felt chilly, but thefreezin' air is beginnin' to go into my very bones like needles; and ifwinter is comin' on, and it's goin' to be worse than this, New Jerseyis the place for me. But there's one thing that chills my blood clammierthan even the cold weather, and that is the thought of that whalefollerin' us. If we get down into those shaller places under the ice an'he takes it into his head to come along, he'll be worse than a bull ina china-shop. I don't mean to say that I think he'll want to do us anyharm, for he has never shown any sign of such a feelin', but if he takesto bouncin' and thrashin' when he scratches himself on any rocks, it'llbe a bad box for us to be in."
None of the others shared these special fears of Mrs. Block, but theywere all as much disinclined as she was to begin another submarinevoyage in the shallow waters which they had been so glad to leave.
It was believed, from the general contour of the surrounding region,that if the ice were all melted away it would be seen that a capeprojected from the American continent eastward at the point where theyhad entered the polar sea, and that it was in crossing the submergedcontinuation of this cape that they had found the shallow water. Beyondand southward they knew that the water was deep and safe. If they couldreach that portion of the sea without crossing the shallow point, theywould have no fears regarding their return voyage. They knew how farsouth it was that that deep water lay, and the questions before themrelated to the best means of reaching it.
At a general council of officers, Sammy and Captain Hubbell bothdeclared that they were not willing to take any other path homewardexcept one which led along the seventieth line of longitude. That hadbrought them safely up, and it would take them safely down. If theywent under the ice at some point eastward, how were they to find theseventieth line of longitude? They could not take observations downthere; and they might have to go south on some other line, which wouldtake them nobody knew where. Mr. Gibbs said little, but he believed thatit would be well to go back the way they came.
At last a plan was proposed by Mr. Marcy, and adopted without dissent.The whole country which lay in the direction they wished to travelseemed to be an immense plain of ice and snow, with mountains looming uptowards the west and in the far southeast. In places great slabs of iceseemed to be piled up into craggy masses, but in general the surfaceof the country was quite level, indicating underlying water. In fact,a little east of the point where they had entered the polar sea greatcracks and reefs, some of them extending nearly a mile inward, broke upthe shore line. The party on the Dipsey were fully able to travel oversmooth ice and frozen snow, for this contingency had been thought of andprovided for; but to take the Dipsey on an overland journey would, ofcourse, be impossible. By Mr. Marcy's plan, however, it was thought thatit would be quite feasible for the Dipsey to sail inland until she hadreached a point where they were sure the deep sea lay serenely beneaththe ice around them.