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_ 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 could be arranged for the return journey, and she talked
a great deal of the terrible fate which would be sure to overtake
them if they should be so unfortunate as to stay until the season
of the arctic night; but, after all, she was not as impatient as
Captain Hubbell. She simply wanted to go home; but he not only
greatly desired to return to his wife and family, but he wanted
to do something else before he started south; he wanted to go
whaling. He considered himself the only man in the whole world
who had a chance to go whaling, and he chafed as he thought of
the hindrances 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
thoroughly understood the importance of the investigations he was
pursuing in the polar sea, and placed full value upon the
opportunity which had come to him of examining the wonders of a
region hitherto locked up from civilized man. Captain Hubbell
was astonished to find that Mr. Gibbs was as hard and unyielding
as an iceberg during his explorations and soundings. It was of
no use to talk to him of whaling; he had work before him, and he
must do it.
But the time came when Mr. Gibbs relented. The Dipsey had sailed
around the whole boundary of the polar sea; observations,
surveys, and maps had been made, and the general geography of the
region had been fairly well determined. There still remained
some weeks of the arctic day, and it was desirable that they
should begin their return journey during that time; so Mr. Gibbs
informed Captain Jim that if he wanted to do a little whaling, he
would like him to lose no time.
Almost from the time of their arrival in the polar sea the
subject of whales had greatly interested everybody on the Dipsey.
Even Rovinski, who had been released from his confinement after a
few days, because he had really committed no actual crime except
that of indulging in overleaping ambition, had spent every
available minute of leisure in looking for whales. It was
strange that nothing in this Northern region interested the
people on the Dipsey (with the sole exception of Mr. Gibbs) so much
as these great fish, which seemed to be the only visible
inhabitants of the polar solitudes. There were probably white bears
somewhere on the icy shores about them, but they never showed
themselves; 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
the polar sea. Wherever our party sailed, lay to, or anchored
for a time, they were very sure, before long, to see a whale
curving his shining black back into the light, or sending two
beautiful jets of water up into the air. Whenever a whale was
seen, somebody on board was sure to remark that these creatures
in this part of the world seemed to be very tame. It was not at
all uncommon to see one disport himself at no great distance from
the vessel for an hour or more.
"If I could get among a school of whales anywhere around
Nantucket and find 'em as tame as these fellers," said Captain
Jim, "I'd give a boom to 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
whaling if he felt like it, the old sailor had experienced a
change of mind. He had become a most ardent student of whales.
In his very circumscribed experience when a young man he had seen
whales, but they had generally been a long way off; and as the
old-fashioned method of rowing after them in boats had even then
been abandoned in favor of killing them by means of the rifled
cannon, Captain Hubbell had not seen very much of these creatures
until they had been towed alongside. But now he could study
whales at his leisure. It was seldom that he had to wait very
long before 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 the
conclusion in Captain Hubbell's mind that there was only one
whale in the polar sea. He had noticed, and others had noticed,
that they never saw two at once, and the captain had used his
glass so often and so well that 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. I
know him like a book; he has his ways and his manners, and it
isn't reasonable to suppose that every whale has the same ways
and manners. He comes just so near the vessel, and then he stops
and blows. Then he suns his back for a while, and then he throws
up his flukes and sounds. He does that as regular as if he was a
polar clock. I know the very shape of his flukes; and two or
three days ago, as he was soundin', I thought that the tip of the
upper one looked as if it had been damaged--as if he had broken
it floppin' about in some tight place; and ever since, when I
have seen a whale, I have looked for the tip of that upper fluke,
and there'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 'em with a battered fluke."
"That does look sort o' queer," said Sammy, reflectively.
"Sammy Block," said Captain Jim, impressively, "it's my opinion
that there'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 that feller we've seen is the one! Samuel Block,
he's the last whale in the whole world! Now you know that I
wanted to go a-whalin'--that's natural enough--but since Mr. Gibbs
has got through, and has said that I could take this vessel an'
go a-whalin' if I wanted to--which would be easy enough, for we
have got guns aboard which would kill any right-whale--I don't
want to go. I don't want to lay on my dyin' bed an' think that
I'm the man that killed the last whale in the world. I'm
commandin' this vessel, and I sail it wherever Mr. Gibbs tells me
to sail it; but if he wants the bones of a whale to take home as
a curiosity, an' tells me to sail this vessel after that whale, I
won't do it."
"I'm with you there," said Sammy. "I have been thinkin' while
you was talkin', an' it's my opinion that it's not only the last
whale in the world, but it's purty nigh tame. I believe it's so
glad to see some other movin' creature in this lonely sea that it
wants to keep company with us all the time. No, sir, I wouldn't
have anything to do with killin' that fish!"
The opinions of the captain and Sammy were now communicated to
the rest of the company on board, and nearly all of them thought
that they had had such an idea themselves. The whale certainly
looked very familiar every time he showed himself.
To Mr. Gibbs this lonely creature, if he were such, now became an
object of intense interest. It was evidently a specimen of the
right-whale, once common in the Northern seas, skeletons of which
could be seen in many 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, the last of his race.
In thinking and talking over the matter Mr. Gibbs formed a theory
which he thought would explain the presence of this solitary
whale in the polar sea. He thought it very likely that it had
gotten under the ice and had pursued its northern journey very
much as the Dipsey had pursued hers, and had at last emerged, as
she had, into the polar sea at a place perhaps as shallow as that
where the submarine vessel came out from under the ice.
"And if that's the case," said Captain Hubbell, "it is ten to one
that he has not been able to get out again, and has found himself
here caught just as if he was in a trap. Fishes don't like to
swim into tight places. They may do it once, but they don't want
to do it again. It is this disposition that makes 'em easy to
catch in traps. I believe you are right, Mr. Gibbs. I believe
this whale has got in here and can't get out--or, at least, he
thinks he can't--and nobody knows how long it's been 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's
the 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 a depressing effect upon the minds of the party on the
Dipsey. There was perhaps no real reason why they should fear
the fate of the great fish, but, after all, this subject was one
which should be very seriously considered. The latter part of
their passage under the ice had been very hazardous. Had they
struck a sharp rock below them, or had they been pierced by a
jagged mass of ice above them, there probably would have been a
speedy end of the expedition; and now, having come safely out of
that dangerous shallow water, they shrank from going into it again.
It was the general opinion that if they would sail a considerable
distance to the eastward they could not fail to find a deep
channel by which the waters of this sea communicated with
Baffin's Bay; but in this case they would be obliged to leave the
line of longitude by which they had safely travelled from Cape
Tariff to the pole and seek another route southward, along some
other line, which would end their journey they knew not where.
"I am cold," said Sarah Block. "At first I got along all right,
with all these furs, and goin' down-stairs every time I felt
chilly, but the freezin' air is beginnin' to go into my very
bones like needles; and if winter is comin' on, and it's goin' to
be worse than this, New Jersey is the place for me. But there's
one thing that chills my blood clammier than even the cold
weather, and that is the thought of that whale follerin' 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 in a
china-shop. I don't mean to say that I think he'll want to do us
any harm, for he has never shown any sign of such a feelin', but
if he takes to bouncin' and thrashin' when he scratches himself
on any rocks, it'll be a bad box for us to be in."
None of the others shared these special fears of Mrs. Block, but
they were all as much disinclined as she was to begin another
submarine voyage 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 cape projected from the American continent eastward at the
point where they had entered the polar sea, and that it was in
crossing the submerged continuation of this cape that they had
found the shallow water. Beyond and southward they knew that the
water was deep and safe. If they could reach that portion of the
sea without crossing the shallow point, they would have no fears
regarding their return voyage. They knew how far south it was
that that deep water lay, and the questions before them related
to the best means of reaching it.
At a general council of officers, Sammy and Captain Hubbell both
declared that they were not willing to take any other path
homeward except one which led along the seventieth line of
longitude. That had brought them safely up, and it would take
them safely down. If they went under the ice at some point
eastward, how were they to find the seventieth line of longitude?
They could not take observations down there; and they might have
to go south on some other line, which would take them nobody knew
where. Mr. Gibbs said little, but he believed that it 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 travel seemed to be an immense plain of ice and snow,
with mountains looming up towards the west and in the far
southeast. In places great slabs of ice seemed to be piled up
into craggy masses, but in general the surface of the country was
quite level, indicating underlying water. In fact, a little east
of the point where they had entered the polar sea great cracks
and reefs, some of them extending nearly a mile inward, broke up
the shore line. The party on the Dipsey were fully able to
travel over smooth ice and frozen snow, for this contingency had
been thought of and provided for; but to take the Dipsey on an
overland journey would, of course, be impossible. By Mr. Marcy's
plan, however, it was thought that it would be quite feasible for
the Dipsey to sail inland until she had reached a point where
they were sure the deep sea lay serenely beneath the ice around
them. _
Read next: CHAPTER XVIII - MR. MARCY'S CANAL
Read previous: CHAPTER XVI - THE TRACK OF THE SHELL
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