Читать книгу A Sack of Shakings - Frank Thomas Bullen - Страница 5

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Shining serenely as some immeasurable mirror beneath the smiling face of heaven, the solitary ocean lay in unrippled silence. It was in those placid latitudes south of the line in the Pacific, where weeks, aye months, often pass without the marginless blue level being ruffled by any wandering keel. Here, in almost perfect security from molestation by man, the innumerable denizens of the deep pursue their never-ending warfare, doubtless enjoying to the full the brimming cup of life, without a weary moment, and with no dreary anticipations of an unwanted old age.

Now it fell on a day that the calm surface of that bright sea was broken by the sudden upheaval of a compact troop of sperm whales from the inscrutable depths wherein they had been roaming and recruiting their gigantic energies upon the abundant molluscs, hideous of mien and insatiable of maw, that, like creations of a diseased mind, lurked far below the sunshine. The school consisted of seven cows and one mighty bull, who was unique in appearance, for instead of being in colour the unrelieved sepia common to his kind he was curiously mottled with creamy white, making the immense oblong cube of his head look like a weather-worn monolith of Siena marble. Easeful as any Arabian khalif, he lolled supine upon the glittering folds of his couch, the welcoming wavelets caressing his vast form with gentlest touch, and murmuring softly as by their united efforts they rocked him in rhythm with their melodic lullaby. Around him glided his faithful harem—gentle timid creatures, no one of them a third of their lord’s huge bulk, but still majestic in their proportions, being each some forty-five feet in length by thirty in girth. Unquestionably the monarch of the flood, their great chief accepted in complacent dignity their unremitting attentions, nor did their playful gambols stir him in the least from his attitude of complete repose.

But while the busy seven were thus disporting themselves in happy security there suddenly appeared among them a delightful companion in the shape of a newly-born calf, elegantly dappled like his sire, the first-born son of the youngest mother in the group. It is not the habit of the cachalot to show that intense self-effacing devotion to its young which is evinced by other mammals, especially whales of the mysticetæ. Nevertheless, as the expectation of this latest addition to the family had been the reason of their visit to these quiet latitudes, his coming made a pleasant little ripple of satisfaction vibrate throughout the group. Even the apparently impenetrable stolidity of the head of the school was aroused into some faint tokens of interest in the new-comer, who clung leech-like to his mother’s side, vigorously draining the enormous convexity of her bosom of its bounteous flood of milk. So well did he thrive, that at the end of a week the youngster was able to hold his own with the school in a race, and competent also to remain under water quite as long as his mother. Then the stately leader signified to his dependants that the time was now at hand when they must change their pleasant quarters. Food was less plentiful than it had been, which was but natural, remembering the ravages necessarily made by such a company of monsters. Moreover, a life of continual ease and slothful luxury such as of late had been theirs was not only favourable to the growth of a hampering investiture of parasites—barnacles, limpets, and weed—all over their bodies, but it completely unfitted them for the stern struggle awaiting them, when in their periodical progress round the world they should arrive on the borders of the fierce Antarctic Zone. And besides all these, had they forgotten that they were liable to meet with man! A sympathetic shudder ran through every member of the school at that dreaded name, under the influence of which they all drew closer around their chief, sweeping their broad flukes restlessly from side to side and breathing inaudibly.

The outcome of the conference, decided, as human meetings of the kind are apt to be, by the commanding influence of one master will, was that on the next day they would depart for the south by easy stages through the teeming “off-shore” waters of South America. All through that quiet night the mighty creatures lay almost motionless on the surface, each the opaque centre of a halo of dazzling emerald light, an occasional drowsy spout from their capacious lungs sliding through the primeval stillness like the sigh of some weary Titan. When at last the steel-blue dome above, with its myriad diamond spangles, began to throb and glow with tremulous waves of lovely vari-coloured light flowing before the conquering squadrons of the sun, the whole troop, in open order about their guide, turned their heads steadfastly to the south-west, steering an absolutely undeviating course for their destination by their innate sense of direction alone. Up sprang the flaming sun, a vast globe of fervent fire that even at the horizon’s edge seemed to glow with meridian strength. And right in the centre of his blazing disc appeared three tiny lines, recognisable even at that distance by the human eye as the masts of a ship whose hull was as yet below the apparent meeting-place of sea and sky. This apparition lay fairly in the path of the advancing whales, who, unhappily for them, possessed but feeble vision, and that only at its best straight behind them. So on they went in leisurely fashion, occasionally pausing for a dignified descent in search of food, followed by an equally stately reappearance and resumption of their journey. Nearer and nearer they drew to the fatal area wherein they would become visible to the keen-eyed watchers at the mast-head of that lonely ship, still in perfect ignorance of any possible danger being at hand. Suddenly that mysterious sense owned by them, which is more than hearing, gave warning of approaching peril. All lay still, though quivering through every sinew of their huge bodies with the apprehension of unknown enemies, their heads half raised from the sparkling sea-surface and their fins and flukes testing the vibrations of the mobile element like the diaphragm of a phonograph. Even the youngling clung to his mother’s side as if glued thereto under the influence of a terror that, while it effectually stilled his sportiveness, gave him no hint of what was coming. At the instance of the Head all sank silently and stone-like without any of those preliminary tail-flourishings and arching of the back that always distinguish the unworried whale from one that has received alarming news in the curious manner already spoken of. They remained below so long and went to so great a depth, that all except the huge leader were quite exhausted when they returned again to the necessary air, not only from privation of breath, but from the incalculable pressure of the superincumbent sea. So for a brief space they lay almost motionless, the valves of their spiracles deeply depressed as they drew in great volumes of revivifying breath, and their great frames limply yielding to the heave of the gliding swell. They had scarcely recovered their normal energy when into their midst rushed the destroyers, bringing with them the realisation of all those paralysing fears. First to be attacked was the noble bull, and once the first bewildering shock and smart had passed he gallantly maintained the reputation of his giant race. Every device that sagacity could conceive or fearlessness execute was tried by him, until the troubled ocean around the combatants was all a-boil, and its so recently unsullied surface was littered with tangled wreaths of blood-streaked foam. Whether from affection or for protection is uncertain, but the rest of the family did not attempt to flee. All seven of the cows kept close to their lord, often appearing as if they would shield him with their own bodies from the invisible death-darts that continually pierced him to the very seat of his vast vitality. And this attachment proved their own destruction, for their assailants, hovering around them with the easy mobility of birds, slew them at their leisure, not even needing to hamper themselves by harpooning another individual. Instead, they wielded their long lances upon the unresisting females, leaving the ocean monarch to his imminent death. So successful were these tactics that before an hour had flown, while yet the violet tint of departing night lingered on the western edge of the sea, the last one of those mighty mammals had groaned out the dregs of her life. Flushed with conquest and breathless from their great exertions, the victors lolled restfully back in their boats, while all around them upon the incarnadined waters the massy bodies of their prey lay gently swaying to the slumberous roll of the silent swell.

Meanwhile, throughout that stark battle, what of the youngling’s fate? By almost a miracle, he had passed without scathe. What manner of dread convulsion of Nature was in progress he could not know—he was blind and deaf and almost lifeless with terror. With all that wide ocean around him he knew not whither to flee from this day of wrath. Of all those who had been to him so brief a space ago the living embodiment of invincible might, not one remained to help or shield him, none but were involved in this cataclysm of blood. His kindred were cut off from him, he was overlooked by his enemies, and when he came to himself he was alone. A sudden frantic impulse seized him, and under its influence he fled, fled as the bee flies, but without the homing instinct to guide him, southward through the calm blue silences of that sleeping ocean. On, on, he fled untiring, until behind him the emerald sheen of his passage through the now starlit waters broadened into a wide blaze of softest light. Before him lay the dark, its profound depths just manifested by the occasional transient gleam of a palpitating medusa or the swift flight of a terrified shark. When compelled to break the glassy surface for breath there was a sudden splash, and amid the deep sigh from his labouring lungs came the musical fall of the sparkling spray. When morning dawned again on his long objectless flight, unfailing instinct warned him of his approach to shallower waters, and with slackening speed he went on, through the tender diffused sunlight of those dreamy depths, until he came to an enormous submarine forest, where the trees were fantastic abutments of living coral, the leaves and fronds of dull-hued fucus or algæ, the blossoms of orchid-like sea-anemones or zoophytes, and the birds were darting, gliding fish, whose myriad splendid tints blazed like illuminated jewels.

Here, surely, he might be at peace and find some solace for his loneliness, some suitable food to replace that which he had hitherto always found awaiting him, and now would find nevermore. Moving gently through the interminably intricate avenues of this submarine world of stillness and beauty, his small lower jaw hanging down as usual, he found abundant store of sapid molluscs that glided down his gaping gullet with a pleasant tickling, and were soon followed by a soothing sense of hunger satisfied. When he rose to spout he was in the midst of a weltering turmoil of broken water, where the majestic swell fretted and roared in wrath around the hindering peaks of a great reef—a group of islands in the making. Here, at any rate, he was safe, for no land was in sight whence might come a band of his hereditary foes, while into that network of jagged rocks no vessel would ever dare to venture. After a few days of placid enjoyment of this secure existence he began to feel courage and independence, although still pining for the companionship of his kind. Thus he might have gone on for long, but that an adventure befell him which raised him at once to his rightful position among the sea-folk. During his rambles through the mazes and glades of this subaqueous paradise he had once or twice noticed between two stupendous columns of coral a black space where the water was apparently of fathomless depth. Curiosity, one of the strongest influences actuating the animate creation, impelled him to investigate this chasm, but something, he knew not what, probably inherited caution, had hitherto held him back. At last, having met with no creature nearly his own size, and grown bold by reason of plenteous food, he became venturesome, and made for that gloomy abyss, bent upon searching its recesses thoroughly. Boldly he swept between the immense bastions that guarded it, and with a swift upward thrust of his broad horizontal tail went headlong down, down, down. Presently he saw amidst the outer darkness a web of palely gleaming lines incessantly changing their patterns and extending over an area of a thousand square yards. They centred upon a dull ghastly glare that was motionless, formless, indescribable. In its midst there was a blackness deeper, if possible, than that of the surrounding pit. Suddenly all that writhing entanglement wrapped him round, each clutching snare fastening upon him with innumerable gnawing mouths as if to devour him all over at once. With a new and even pleasant sensation thrilling along his spine the young leviathan hurled himself forward at that midmost gap, his powerful jaws clashing and his whole lithe frame upstrung with nervous energy. Right through the glutinous musky mass of that unthinkable chimæra he hewed his way, heeding not in the least the wrenching, sucking coils winding about him, and covering every inch of his body. Absolute silence reigned as the great fight went on. Its inequality was curiously abnormal. For while the vast amorphous bulk of the mollusc completely dwarfed the comparatively puny size of the young cachalot, there was on the side of the latter all the innate superiority of the vertebrate carnivorous mammal with warrior instincts transmitted unimpaired through a thousand generations of ocean royalty. Gradually the grip of those clinging tentacles relaxed as he felt the succulent gelatinousness divide, and with a bound he ascended from that befouled abysmal gloom into the light and loveliness of the upper air. Behind him trailed sundry long fragments, disjecta membra of his late antagonist, and upon these, after filling his lungs again and again with the keen pure air of heaven, he feasted grandly.

But in spite of the new inspiring sense of conscious might and ability to do even as his forefathers had done, his loneliness was heavy upon him. For, like all mammals, the cachalot loves the fellowship of his kin during the days of his strength; and only when advancing age renders him unable to hold his own against jealous rivals, or makes him a laggard in the united chase, does he forsake the school and wander solitary and morose about the infinite solitude of his limitless abode. And so, surrounded by the abundant evidences of his prowess, the young giant meditated, while a hungry host of sharks, like jackals at the lion’s kill, came prowling up out of the surrounding silence, and with shrill cries of delight the hovering bird-folk gathered in myriads to take tithe of his enormous spoil. Unheeding the accumulating multitudes, who gave him ample room and verge enough, and full of flesh, he lay almost motionless, when suddenly that subtle sense which, attuned to the faintest vibrations of the mobile sea, kept him warned, informed him that some more than ordinary commotion was in progress not many miles away. Instantly every sinew set taut, every nerve tingled with receptivity, while, quivering like some fucus frond in a tide rip, his broad tail swayed silently to and fro, but so easily as not to stir his body from its attitude of intense expectation. A gannet swept over him close down, startling him so that with one fierce lunge of his flukes he sprang forward twenty yards; but recovering himself he paused again, though the impetus still bore him noiselessly ahead, the soothing wash of the waves eddying gently around his blunt bow. Shortly after, to his unbounded joy, a noble company of his own folk hove in sight, two score of them in goodliest array. They glided around him in graceful curves, wonderingly saluting him by touching his small body with fin, nose, and tail, and puzzled beyond measure as to how so young a fellow-citizen came to be inhabiting these vast wastes alone. His tale was soon told, for the whale-people waste no interchange of ideas, and the company solemnly received him into their midst as a comrade who had well earned the right to be one of their band by providing for them so great a feast. Swiftly the spoil of that gigantic mollusc was rescued from the marauding sharks, and devoured; and thorough was the subsequent search among those deep-lying darknesses for any other monsters of the same breed that might lie brooding in their depths. None were to be found, although for two days and nights the questing leviathans pursued their keen investigations. When there remained no longer a cave unfathomed or a maze unexplored, the leader of the school, a huge black bull of unrivalled fame, gave the signal for departure, and away they went in double columns, line ahead, due south, their splendid chief about a cable’s length in advance. The happy youngster, no longer astray from his kind, gambolled about the school in unrestrained delight at the rising tide of life that surged tumultuously through his vigorous frame. Ah; it was so good to be alive, glorious to speed, with body bending bow-wise, and broad fan-like flukes spurning the brilliant waves behind him, ecstasy to exert all the power he felt in one mad upward rush until out into the sunlight high through the warm air he sprang, a living embodiment of irresistible force, and fell with a joyous crash back into the welcoming bosom of his native deep. The sedate patriarch of the school looked on these youthful freaks indulgently, until, fired by the sight of his young follower’s energy, he too put forth all his incredible strength, launching his hundred tons or so of solid weight clear of the embracing sea, and returning to it again with a shock as of some Polyphemus-hurled mountain.

Thus our orphan grew and waxed great. Together, without mishap of any kind, these lords of the flood skirted the southern slopes of the globe. In serene security they ranged the stormy seas from Kerguelen to Cape Horn, from the Falklands to Table Bay. Up through the scent-laden straits between Madagascar and Mozambique, loitering along the burning shores of Zanzibar and Pemba, dallying with the eddies around the lonely Seychelles and idling away the pleasant north-east monsoon in the Arabian Sea. By the Bab-el-Mandeb they entered the Red Sea, their majestic array scaring the nomad fishermen at their lonely labour along the reef-besprinkled margins thereof, remote from the straight-ruled track down its centre along which the unwearied slaves of the West, the great steamships, steadily thrust their undeviating way. Here, in richest abundance, they found their favourite food, cuttlefish of many kinds, although none so large as those haunting the middle depths of the outer ocean. And threading the deep channels between the reefs great shoals of delicately flavoured fish, beguiled by the pearly whitenesses of those gaping throats, rushed fearlessly down them to oblivion. So quiet were these haunts, so free from even the remotest chance of interference by man, their only enemy, that they remained for many months, even penetrating well up the Gulf of Akaba, that sea of sleep whose waters even now retain the same primitive seclusion they enjoyed when their shores were the cradle of mankind.

But now a time was fast approaching when our hero must needs meet his compeers in battle, if haply he might justify his claim to be a leader in his turn. For such is the custom of the cachalot. The young bulls each seek to form a harem among the younger cows of the school, and having done so, they break off from the main band and pursue their own independent way. This crisis in the career of the orphan had been imminent for some time, but now, in these untroubled seas, it could no longer be delayed. Already several preliminary skirmishes had taken place with no definite results, and at last, one morning when the sea was like oil for smoothness, and blazing like burnished gold under the fervent glare of the sun, two out of the four young bulls attacked the orphan at once. All around lay the expectant brides ready to welcome the conqueror, while in solitary state the mighty leader held aloof, doubtless meditating on the coming time when a mightier than he should arise and drive him from his proud position into lifelong exile. Straight for our hero’s massive head came his rivals, charging along the foaming surface like bluff-bowed torpedo rams. But as they converged upon him he also charged to meet them, settling slightly at the same time. Whether by accident or design I know not, but certainly the consequence of this move was that instead of their striking him they met one another over his back, the shock of their impact throwing their great heads out of the sea with a dull boom that might have been heard for a mile. Swiftly and gracefully the orphan turned head over flukes, rising on his back and clutching the nearest of his opponents by his pendulous under-jaw. The fury of that assault was so great that the attacked one’s jaw was wrenched sideways, until it remained at right angles to his body, leaving him for the rest of his life sorely hampered in even the getting of food, but utterly incapable of ever again giving battle to one of his own species. Then rushing towards the other aggressor the victorious warrior inverted his body in the sea, and brandishing his lethal flukes smote so doughtily upon his foe that the noise of those tremendous blows reverberated for leagues over the calm sea, while around the combatants the troubled waters were lashed into ridges and islets of snowy foam. Very soon was the battle over. Disheartened, sick, and exhausted, the disabled rival essayed to escape, settling stone-like until he lay like some sunken wreck on the boulder-bestrewn sea-bed a hundred fathoms down. Slowly, but full of triumph, the conqueror returned to the waiting school and, selecting six of the submissive cows, led them away without any attempt at hindrance on the part of the other two young bulls who had not joined in the fray.

In stately march the new family travelled southward out of the Red Sea, along the Somali Coast, past the frowning cliffs of Sokotra, and crossing the Arabian Sea, skirted at their ease the pleasant Malabar littoral. Unerring instinct guided them across the Indian Ocean and through the Sunda Straits, until amid the intricacies of Celebes they ended their journey for a season. Here, with richest food in overflowing abundance, among undisturbed reef-beds swept by constantly changing currents, where they might chafe their irritated skins clean from the many parasites they had accumulated during their long Red Sea sojourn, they remained for several seasons. Then, suddenly, as calamities usually come, they were attacked by a whaler as they were calmly coasting along Timor. But never till their dying day did those whale-fishers forget that fight. True, they secured two half-grown cows, but at what a cost to themselves! For the young leader, now in the full flush of vigorous life, seemed not only to have inherited the fighting instincts of his ancestors, but also to possess a fund of wily ferocity that made him a truly terrible foe. No sooner did he feel the first keen thrust of the harpoon than, instead of expending his strength for naught by a series of aimless flounderings, he rolled his huge bulk swiftly towards his aggressors, who were busily engaged in clearing their boat of the hampering sail, and perforce helpless for a time. Right down upon them came the writhing mass of living flesh, overwhelming them as completely as if they had suddenly fallen under Niagara. From out of that roaring vortex only two of the six men forming the boat’s crew emerged alive, poor fragments of humanity tossing like chips upon the tormented sea. Then changing his tactics, the triumphant cachalot glided stealthily about just beneath the surface, feeling with his sensitive flukes for anything still remaining afloat upon which to wreak his newly aroused thirst for vengeance. As often as he touched a floating portion of the shattered boat, up flew his mighty flukes in a moment, and, with a reflex blow that would have stove in the side of a ship, he smote it into still smaller splinters. This attention to his first set of enemies saved the other boats from destruction, for they, using all expedition, managed to despatch the two cows they had harpooned, and when they returned to the scene of disaster, the bull, unable to find anything more to destroy, had departed with the remnant of his family, and they saw him no more. Gloomily they traversed the battle-field until they found the two exhausted survivors just feebly clinging to a couple of oars, and with them mournfully regained their ship.

Meanwhile the triumphant bull was slowly making his way eastward, sorely irritated by the galling harpoon which was buried deep in his shoulders, and wondering what the hundreds of fathoms of trailing rope behind him could be. At last coming to a well-known reef he managed to get the line entangled around some of its coral pillars, and a strenuous effort on his part tore out the barbed weapon, leaving in its place a ragged rent in his blubber four feet long. Such a trifle as that, a mere superficial scratch, gave him little trouble, and with the wonderful recuperative power possessed by all the sea-folk the ugly tear was completely healed in a few days. Henceforth he was to be reckoned among the most dangerous of all enemies to any of mankind daring to attack him, for he knew his power. This the whalemen found to their cost. Within the next few years his fame had spread from Cape Cod to Chelyushkin, and wherever two whaleships met for a spell of “gamming,” his prowess was sure to be an absorbing topic of conversation. In fact, he became the terror of the tortuous passages of Malaysia, and though often attacked always managed to make good his escape, as well as to leave behind him some direful testimony to his ferocious cunning. At last he fell in with a ship off Palawan, whose crew were justly reputed to be the smartest whale-fishers from “Down East.” Two of her boats attacked him one lovely evening just before sunset, but the iron drew. Immediately he felt the wound he dived perpendicularly, but describing a complete vertical circle beneath the boat he rose again, striking her almost amidships with the front of his head. This, of course, hurled the crew everywhere, besides shattering the boat. But reversing himself again on the instant, he brandished those awful flukes in the air, bringing them down upon the helpless men and crushing three of them into dead pieces. Apparently satisfied, he disappeared in the gathering darkness.

When the extent of the disaster became known on board the ship, the skipper was speechless with rage and grief, for the mate who had been killed was his brother, and very dear to him. And he swore that if it cost him a season’s work and the loss of his ship, he would slay that man-killing whale. From that day he cruised about those narrow seas offering large rewards to any of his men who should first sight his enemy again. Several weeks went by, during which not a solitary spout was seen, until one morning in Banda Strait the skipper himself “raised” a whale close in to the western verge of the island. Instantly all hands were alert, hoping against hope that this might prove to be their long-sought foe at last. Soon the welcome news came from aloft that it was a sperm whale, and an hour later two boats left the ship, the foremost of them commanded by the skipper. With him he took four small barrels tightly bunged, and an extra supply of bomb-lances, in the use of which he was an acknowledged expert. As they drew near the unconscious leviathan they scarcely dared breathe, and, their oars carefully peaked, they propelled the boats by paddles as silently as the gliding approach of a shark. Hurrah! fast; first iron. “Starn all, men! it’s him, d—n him, ’n I’ll slaughter him ’r he shall me.” Backward flew the boat, not a second too soon, for with that superhuman cunning expected of him, the terrible monster had spun round and was rushing straight for them. The men pulled for dear life, the steersman swinging the boat round as if she were on a pivot, while the skipper pitched over the first of his barrels. Out flashed the sinewy flukes, and before that tremendous blow the buoyant barrico spun through the air like a football. The skipper’s eyes flashed with delight at the success of his stratagem, and over went another decoy. This seemed to puzzle the whale, but it did not hinder him, and he seemed to keep instinctively heading towards the boat, thus exposing only his invulnerable head. The skipper, however, had no idea of rashly risking himself, so heaving over his remaining barrel he kept well clear of the furious animal’s rushes, knowing well that the waiting game was the best. All through that bright day the great battle raged. Many were the hair-breadth escapes of the men, but the skipper never lost his cool, calculating attitude. Finally the now exhausted leviathan “sounded” in reality, remaining down for half-an-hour. When he reappeared, he was so sluggish in his movements that the exultant skipper shouted, “Naow, boys, in on him! he’s our whale.” Forward darted the beautiful craft under the practised sweep of the six oars, and as soon as she was within range the skipper fired his first bomb. It reached the whale, but, buried in the flesh, its explosion was not disabling. Still it did not spur the huge creature into activity, for at last his strength had failed him. Another rush in and another bomb, this time taking effect just abaft the starboard fin. There was a momentary accession of energy as the frightful wound caused by the bursting iron tube among the monster’s viscera set all his masses of muscle a-quiver. But this spurt was short-lived. And as a third bomb was fired a torrent of blood foamed from the whale’s distended spiracle, a few fierce convulsions distorted his enormous frame, and that puissant ocean monarch passed peacefully into the passiveness of death.

When they got the great carcass alongside, they found embedded in the blubber no fewer than fourteen harpoons, besides sundry fragments of exploded bombs, each bearing mute but eloquent testimony to the warlike career of the vanquished Titan who began his career as an orphan.