Doctor Syn on the High Seas - Thorndike Russell (читать лучшие читаемые книги TXT) 📗

buy a share in some other ship and follow. My companions agreed that

there was nothing else to do. I knew, of course, that I could count on

Mipps to accompany me, but when I thought to take a fond farewell of our

Indian I was mistaken. He had

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married a girl from amongst the Gay-head Indians who inhabit the

beautiful island named ‘Martha’s Vineyard’, a tribe who from time

immemorial have fought the great leviathan. He proposed that we should

journey there, and then cross to the next island of Nantucket, from

which port he had been told the fastest and the largest whale-ships

sailed. A thriving town, too, much reliable wealth. Indeed, so

prosperous was this whaling trade that we could find no owner willing to

see us a vessel outright.

At last, however, I struck a bargain with a famour family of the

trade named Coffin, by insuring the safe return of a vessel called

Ezekiel, which was to be handed back with half profits upon the

conclusion of the voyage. In this way the Coffins stood to gain, but not

to lose. However, their experience was invaluable, for they found us a

full complement of tried men with a captain of their own whose integrity

they vouched for. I sailed on the ship’s papers as half owner of the

voyage, who wished to study the art of the harpoon. Mipps was shipped as

carpenter, and Shuhshuhgah, who had never been to sea, as a Greenhorn.

On this good ship we have now been to sea for two whole years. We have

rounded the dreadful Horn in storms as mighty as the ever-growing hate

in my heart. We have beat about Good Hope and killed fine whales there,

and now we are back again after sperm whale in the Pacific, which has so

far proved to be our best successful hunting -ground. But I hunt other

than a whale. As I sharpen my blade I think only of plunging it into his

black heart.

Two days later, Tony; for we have been hard driven cutting up two

mighty animals. Both of them forty-barreled Jonahs, and in one pleasant

lump of ambergris. I will not weary you with whaler’s jargon, though

some day I will write you a treatise on the subject. I love a good

harpoon! It is a godlike weapon. Mine is a marvel, and I trust no whale

will robe me of it, for I hope one day to send it crashing into human

ribs. Aye, into Nicholas.

Exhausted, we looked around upon an empty sea, for we had been towed

far out of sight fro m the lofty masthead of the ship, and there was

nothing for it but to lie alongside our valuable corpse till morning. A

salt breeze now fanned us, so that we were the more hopeful that the

Ezekiel’s sails would fill enough to follow us. We were far too weary to

commence the tedious business of towing back our prize. Also it was

easier for the ship to find us than for us to locate the ship. So we

rigged what is known as a wall-pole. This is a slender mast which is

thrust into the dead whale’s spout hole, and a lighted lantern hoisted

to its head. As the night set in under a clear moon, Shuhshuhgah pointed

towards the horizon, and we saw white canvas moving up into the skyline. At first we took this to be the mother ship searching for its lost

child, but as her rigging mounted higher, our old oarsman contradicted

us.

“That ship, don’t listen for the clacking of an old woman’s needles

in Nantucket,” he said. ‘A New Englander she may be, but not from our

port. No. You can tell by the set of her.’

We all de voutly hoped he was right, for the vessel never showed her

hull above the horizon, and our little flicker from the lantern was

evidently lost to her look-out in the dancing moon-sparks on the sea.

Scratching for the breeze, she changed her course and tacked down below

the line again, and we were once more alone.

All that night we lay beside our dead antagonist. Before dawn, the

breeze has freshened, and as the sun came up so did the sails of the

Ezekiel, and we were safe.

Our carcass lashed safely alo ngside the Ezekiel, I left the cutters

at work to take a glass of grog with the captain. He had a story to

tell. Having seen

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my whale -boat charted so ferociously out of sight, the captain had taken

our direction before attending to the other boats, one of which lost

their whale through the depth of its soundings, so that they had to cut

the line for their life, and the other killing quickly the fine fellow

to ours. He was waiting for the breeze to bring him nearer to us, when

he sighted the very ship which we had seen. A whaler, too, but with

every tun overflowing, and so bound for home rejoicing.

Aye, my good Tony, let me if possible anticipate your guess. She was

the Isaiah from New Bedford. Our Nantucket had been correct. Had he but

known her name, I would have abandoned our carcass and rowed for her, to

get my reckoning. But let me tell you in the captain’s words. ‘She

signaled us for a Gam’ (This, my good Tony, is a word for a high seas

courtesy call between two captains.) ‘They lowered a boat, and, much to

my amazement, when the boat was manned and the captain standing at the

helm an admiral’s cradle was lowered bearing a woman. It was his

captain’s wife. She was very beautiful and still but a girl, though when

she was hauled aboard us, she told me that her little son was asleep in

her cabin. The captain was a pleasant enough fellow in his cups, and

they were plentiful. He owned his ship and had done well for himself and

crew. You may believe that I anxiously questioned him about your whaleboat, and whether he had seen it. He had not. After that, all went

merrily over drinks, but being anxious about your fate, I kept referring

to you as one of the most outstanding harpooners I had shipped with. It

was when I described

you that his wife se ized his arm and whispered. At once a cold fear

seemed to possess both. The reason I cannot explain. Immediately they

insisted upon departure. I tried to dissuade them, for in the morning I

had hoped they would have aided our search for you. However, go they

would. On porting I learned his name was Nicholas Tappitt.’

Tony, had I not chased that whale, I could have harpooned him in the

cabin of the Ezekiel —in front of her eyes, too. But I learned further

things from our captain, without in any way rousing his suspicious.

Things that may prove useful to me. Nicholas upon the voyage has

subjected his body to the stupid torture of the tattoonist. He is a mss

of symbols and designs: tattooed from head to food. It will make him at

least the more noticeable, and many inquiries after him the easier. He

is now for home, or rather, his home port. But, as he said over his

cups, he is no more for the whaling. He thinks to sail his ship into the

Caribbean Seas. He sees a great promise in piracy, I gather. Our captain

considered this but drunken boasting. I have my own opinion. Well, if

his black conscience takes him there through fear of me, it is there

that I shall follow. Who knows, Tony, but that your college friend, so

blinded with hate, which is all-consuming, may not also hoist the Jolly

Roger, and, like a lone shark, prey on pirate ships till I can kill him?

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Chapter 15

Syn Hoists the Black Flag

Four years after the Ezekiel had sailed from Nantucket, she returned

full-laden with the richness of many a great whale. The Coffins were

more than pleased with the results, and treated Captain Clegg