"Cousin Benedict," said Mrs. Weldon, "see that immense reddish field which extends as far as we can see."
"Hold!" said Captain Hull.
"That is whales' food.
Mr. Benedict, a fine occasion to study this curious species of crustacea."
"Phew!" from the entomologist.
"How—phew!" cried the captain.
"But you have no right to profess such indifference.
These crustaceans form one of the six classes of the articulates, if I am not mistaken, and as such——"
"Phew!" said Cousin Benedict again, shaking his lead.
"For instance——I find you passably disdainful for an entomologist!"
"Entomologist, it may be," replied Cousin Benedict, "but more particularly hexapodist, Captain Hull, please remember."
"At all events," replied Captain Hull, "if these crustaceans do not interest you, it can't be helped; but it would be otherwise if you possessed a whale's stomach. Then what a regale!
Do you see, Mrs. Weldon, when we whalers, during the fishing season, arrive in sight of a shoal of these crustaceans, we have only time to prepare our harpoons and our lines.
We are certain that the game is not distant."
"Is it possible that such little beasts can feed such large ones?" cried Jack.
"Ah! my boy," replied Captain Hull, "little grains of vermicelli, of flour, of fecula powder, do they not make very good porridge?
Yes; and nature has willed that it should be so. When a whale floats in the midst of these red waters, its soup is served; it has only to open its immense mouth.
Myriads of crustaceans enter it.
The numerous plates of those whalebones with which the animal's palate is furnished serve to strain like fishermen's nets; nothing can get out of them again, and the mass of crustaceans is ingulfed in the whale's vast stomach, as the soup of your dinner in yours."
"You think right, Jack," observed Dick Sand, "that Madam Whale does not lose time in picking these crustaceans one by one, as you pick shrimps."
"I may add," said Captain Hull, "that it is just when the enormous gourmand is occupied in this way, that it is easiest to approach it without exciting its suspicion.
That is the favorable moment to harpoon it with some success."
At that instant, and as if to corroborate Captain Hull, a sailor's voice was heard from the front of the ship:
"A whale to larboard!"
Captain Hull strode up.
"A whale!" cried he. And his fisherman's instinct urging him, he hastened to the "Pilgrim's" forecastle.
Mrs. Weldon, Jack, Dick Sand, Cousin Benedict himself, followed him at once.
In fact, four miles to windward a certain bubbling indicated that a huge marine mammifer was moving in the midst of the red waters.
Whalers could not be mistaken in it. But the distance was still too considerable to make it possible to recognize the species to which this mammifer belonged.
These species, in fact, are quite distinct.
Was it one of those "right" whales, which the fishermen of the Northern Ocean seek most particularly?
Those cetaceans, which lack the dorsal fin, but whose skin covers a thick stratum of lard, may attain a length of eighty feet, though the average does not exceed sixty, and then a single one of those monsters furnishes as much as a hundred barrels of oil.
Was it, on the contrary, a "humpback," belonging to the species of baloenopters, a designation whose termination should at least gain it the entomologist's esteem?
These possess dorsal fins, white in color, and as long as half the body, which resemble a pair of wings—something like a flying whale.
Had they not in view, more likely, a "finback" mammifer, as well known by the name "jubarte," which is provided with a dorsal fin, and whose length may equal that of the "right" whale?
Captain Hull and his crew could not yet decide, but they regarded the animal with more desire than admiration.
If it is true that a clockmaker cannot find himself in a room in the presence of a clock without experiencing the irresistible wish to wind it up, how much more must the whaler, before a whale, be seized with the imperative desire to take possession of it?
The hunters of large game, they say, are more eager than the hunters of small game.
Then, the larger the animal, the more it excites covetousness. Then, how should hunters of elephants and fishers of whalers feel?
And then there was that disappointment, felt by all the "Pilgrim's" crew, of returning with an incomplete cargo.
Meanwhile, Captain Hull tried to distinguish the animal which had been signaled in the offing.
It was not very visible from that distance. Nevertheless, the trained eye of a whaler could not be deceived in certain details easier to discern at a distance. In fact, the water-spout, that is, that column of vapor and water which the whale throws back by its rents, would attract Captain Hull's attention, and fix it on the species to which this cetacean belonged.
"That is not a 'right' whale," cried he.
"Its water-spout would be at once higher and of a smaller volume.
On the other hand, if the noise made by that spout in escaping could be compared to the distant noise of a cannon, I should be led to believe that that whale belongs to the species of 'humpbacks;' but there is nothing of the kind, and, on listening, we are assured that this noise is of quite a different nature.
What is your opinion on this subject, Dick?" asked Captain Hull, turning toward the novice.
"I am ready to believe, captain," replied Dick Sand, "that we have to do with a jubarte.
See how his rents throw that column of liquid violently into the air.
Does it not seem to you also—which would confirm my idea—that that spout contains more water than condensed vapor?
And, if I am not mistaken, it is a special peculiarity of the jubarte."