At that moment Commander Farragut was ordering the last moorings
to be cast loose which held the Abraham Lincoln to the pier
of Brooklyn. So in a quarter of an hour, perhaps less,
the frigate would have sailed without me. I should have missed
this extraordinary, supernatural, and incredible expedition,
the recital of which may well meet with some suspicion.

But Commander Farragut would not lose a day nor an hour
in scouring the seas in which the animal had been sighted.
He sent for the engineer.

"Is the steam full on?" asked he.

"Yes, sir," replied the engineer.

"Go ahead," cried Commander Farragut.



CHAPTER IV

NED LAND

Captain Farragut was a good seaman, worthy of the frigate he commanded.
His vessel and he were one. He was the soul of it. On the question
of the monster there was no doubt in his mind, and he would not allow
the existence of the animal to be disputed on board. He believed in it,
as certain good women believe in the leviathan--by faith, not by reason.
The monster did exist, and he had sworn to rid the seas of it. Either Captain
Farragut would kill the narwhal, or the narwhal would kill the captain.
There was no third course.

The officers on board shared the opinion of their chief.
They were ever chatting, discussing, and calculating the various
chances of a meeting, watching narrowly the vast surface of the ocean.
More than one took up his quarters voluntarily in the cross-trees,
who would have cursed such a berth under any other circumstances.
As long as the sun described its daily course, the rigging was
crowded with sailors, whose feet were burnt to such an extent by
the heat of the deck as to render it unbearable; still the Abraham
Lincoln had not yet breasted the suspected waters of the Pacific.
As to the ship's company, they desired nothing better than to meet
the unicorn, to harpoon it, hoist it on board, and despatch it.
They watched the sea with eager attention.

Besides, Captain Farragut had spoken of a certain sum of two thousand dollars,
set apart for whoever should first sight the monster, were he cabin-boy,
common seaman, or officer.

I leave you to judge how eyes were used on board the Abraham Lincoln.

For my own part I was not behind the others, and, left to no one my share
of daily observations. The frigate might have been called the Argus,
for a hundred reasons. Only one amongst us, Conseil, seemed to protest
by his indifference against the question which so interested us all,
and seemed to be out of keeping with the general enthusiasm on board.

I have said that Captain Farragut had carefully provided his
ship with every apparatus for catching the gigantic cetacean.
No whaler had ever been better armed. We possessed every
known engine, from the harpoon thrown by the hand to the barbed
arrows of the blunderbuss, and the explosive balls of the duck-gun.
On the forecastle lay the perfection of a breech-loading gun,
very thick at the breech, and very narrow in the bore,
the model of which had been in the Exhibition of 1867.
This precious weapon of American origin could throw with ease
a conical projectile of nine pounds to a mean distance
of ten miles.

Thus the Abraham Lincoln wanted for no means of destruction; and, what was
better still she had on board Ned Land, the prince of harpooners.

Ned Land was a Canadian, with an uncommon quickness of hand, and who knew
no equal in his dangerous occupation. Skill, coolness, audacity, and cunning
he possessed in a superior degree, and it must be a cunning whale to escape
the stroke of his harpoon.

Ned Land was about forty years of age; he was a tall man
(more than six feet high), strongly built, grave and taciturn,
occasionally violent, and very passionate when contradicted.
His person attracted attention, but above all the boldness
of his look, which gave a singular expression to his face.

Who calls himself Canadian calls himself French; and, little communicative
as Ned Land was, I must admit that he took a certain liking for me.
My nationality drew him to me, no doubt. It was an opportunity for him
to talk, and for me to hear, that old language of Rabelais, which is still
in use in some Canadian provinces. The harpooner's family was originally
from Quebec, and was already a tribe of hardy fishermen when this town
belonged to France.

Little by little, Ned Land acquired a taste for chatting, and I
loved to hear the recital of his adventures in the polar seas.
He related his fishing, and his combats, with natural poetry
of expression; his recital took the form of an epic poem,
and I seemed to be listening to a Canadian Homer singing the Iliad
of the regions of the North.

I am portraying this hardy companion as I really knew him.
We are old friends now, united in that unchangeable friendship


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