Steve Young Part 24

"Watch it," said Johannes quietly.

"Yes, I've got it right now. You can see the copper of the bottom s.h.i.+ning in the sun, and--oh, she's sunk! she's gone down quickly, head first, and--why, it was a whale!"

"Hah! you were a long time getting to it, sir. Yes, a whale, a right whale, and a big one, too."

"Well, quick!" cried Steve excitedly. "Why don't you hail the deck, and tell them? We must have that."

"How, sir? with a hook and line?"

"Nonsense! Do you think I don't know? Have out the boats and harpoon it, the same as you did the white whale."

The Norseman laughed softly.

"No, no," he said quietly; "you can't kill right whales like that, sir.

You want proper boats with crews, and harpoons with long lines suitable for the work. Why, that fish would run away with all our lines in a minute at the first wounding. We must be satisfied with looking at it.

Has it come up again?"

"Oh yes, and I can see it swimming about and playing in the water."

"Nice little thing to play, sir. That must be seventy feet long."

"But are you sure that we could not tire it out?"

"Quite, sir. I once went for a voyage, and pretty well know what whale-fis.h.i.+ng is. Hail the deck now and tell the captain; there he is.

He's using his gla.s.s; I fancy he has made it out."

At that moment the captain looked upward.

"Who's aloft there?" he cried.

"I am, sir--Johannes!"

"There's something out in the suns.h.i.+ne on the starboard bow; try if you can make it out."

"We have, sir!" cried Steve; "it's a large whale."

"Hullo! you there?"

"Yes, sir. Are you going to try for it?"

"Hah! I can't quite make it out from here. Eh? Try for it? No, my lad. We are not Greenland whale-fishers. Mind how you come down."

"Yes, I'll take care," replied Steve; and the captain made no reference to the last ascent, but walked away.

"You'll remember your promise, Johannes?" said Steve after a few minutes.

"Oh yes, sir; never fear. Only give me the chance, and you shall harpoon a white whale and catch your fish."

But that chance did not seem as if it would come, as the _Hvalross_ sailed on over a calm sea day after day, the wind serving well, and the coal-bunkers remaining well charged ready for the days when the cold weather was returning--that was, if they had not already achieved their aim.

Here and there, as they kept along a mile or so from the floe, it began to show signs of breaking up, for at times loose fields of many acres in extent were pa.s.sed, and at others detached fragments, imperceptibly gliding southward to dissolve slowly from the combined influence of the suns.h.i.+ne and the warmer sea into which they drifted.

"I say, Mr Hands...o...b..," said Steve one evening, when the sun in the north-west was s.h.i.+ning with a softened radiance which turned the distant ice-floe into gold, "isn't this getting to be a little tame and--and--"

"Monotonous?" said the doctor, finis.h.i.+ng the boy's sentence, for he had begun to hesitate.

"Yes, I meant something of that kind. I thought we were going to have all kinds of adventures, and it's always blue sea and the ice away there to the left."

"Oh, I see," said the doctor; "you want a bear every day, with a bit of whale-fis.h.i.+ng, being lost in the mist, and a few wrecks discovered thrown in."

"No, I don't," said the lad pettishly; "but I don't want to be always sailing along like this, doing nothing. If you go up in the crow's-nest there's ice and sun, and if you stop on deck it's always the same. I want to be doing something. Look at Skeny here, growing quite fat."

"Shall I ask Captain Marsham to see if we can't find the sea-serpent for you?"

"There, now you're laughing at me."

"Then don't be so impatient. Why, you stupid fellow, isn't it wonderful enough to be sailing along here in what looks like constant summer save for the floating ice, and with that glorious sun going round and round in the sky without setting? Is not this constant daylight alone worth the journey?"

"Ye-es," replied Steve; "only it does seem a bit wasteful."

"Wasteful?"

"Yes. What's the good of having the sun s.h.i.+ning when you are asleep?

It would be ever so much better to have some of it in the winter, or else for us to be so that we did not want any sleep for months in summer, and did not want to be awake for months in the winter, when it's dark."

"I say, Marsham!" cried the doctor, laughing, "come and listen. Here's our philosopher going to set nature right and improve the whole world."

"Oh, I say, Mr Hands...o...b.., don't," whispered Steve, flus.h.i.+ng.

"What does he propose doing?" said the captain as he joined them.

"He wants to keep awake all the summer and sleep all the winter; he says it would be better."

"Well, he has only to take lessons from the bears and practise hibernating. But, like them, he would no doubt be very hungry when he awoke."

"He's getting out of patience, too; wants something to do. Can't you rig him up a line, and let him try for a shark?"

"No sharks up here," said Steve promptly.

"Plenty," said the captain, looking at Steve with a peculiar smile, which made the lad wince, for it seemed to say to him, "Don't be so conceited, my lad; you don't know everything yet."

"Greenland shark, I think it is called. The Finland people fish for it.

I say, Jakobsen, could we catch sharks anywhere hereabouts?"

"I don't know about here, sir," said the Norseman gravely. "There are plenty near the Greenland sh.o.r.es."

"How do you catch them?"