“I killed the whale,” said the captain of the first vessel.
“Now don’t be smart. You know when I said ‘I’, the reference was to my ship.”
“Where’s the proof that anybody in your ship killed it?”
“Proof enough. Even if the waif was gone, the whale was dead, and I can show that the warp coiled around the body was the warp of my ship.”
The captain of the other vessel thundered back, “The whale belongs to this ship, and the oil and bone from him will stay on this ship until we get back to New Bedford, and what are you going to do about it?”
“You’ll find out what we are going to do about it when we get back to that port.”
And the visiting captain went to his boat. They did find out, for when they returned, the United States Court held that the ship whose first mate killed the whale was entitled to the value of the oil and bone.
The subject of the second lawsuit was a bowhead in which we were interested, and a big one, too. Both our vessel and another one laid claim to it. When, on a very fair day for that part of the world, bowheads were sighted, all our boats were lowered. As a rule the captain of a whaler did not go in a boat, but remained on the ship with the cooper, steward, cook, spare hands and so forth. But now and then the captain would take a hand in whaling.
Twice before, during the voyage, Captain Gamans had commanded a boat, and each time had been unsuccessful. There was a little fun among the men over the captain’s failure—of course, with themselves—and I happened to hear a remark one day from Silva which made me believe that the officers had a little fun also, among themselves, at the captain’s expense. I have the impression that the captain wanted to make good, for on this day he decided to go in the boat.
There were several bowheads in sight, and rather far off. Our men pulled away lustily, but when we were pretty near a big fellow, shy and sly, like all of his kind, down he went, and when he came up the signal from the ship showed him so far away that we gave up the chase. Two other boats were in pursuit of whales, and they, too, were unsuccessful, while the fourth boat made fast to a bowhead. Then there was a commotion in the boat, the men moving around quickly as if something had happened. Lakeum said, “It’s the captain’s boat. I hope he hasn’t had any more bad luck. It looks to me as if they have cut the line. I hope nobody’s hurt. We’ll make for her.” And so we did, while the two unsuccessful boats put back to the ship.
