Part 7

“Hy-yah, hy-yah!” he cried, leaning from the barrel and calling through an arched palm. “Hy-yah, one two, plenty, many tortle, topside, wattah; hy-yah, all-same tortle.”

“Hello, hello!” cried the Captain, rolling from his hammock. “Turtle? Where-away?”

“I tink-um 'bout quallah mile, mebbee, four-piecee tortle all-same weatha bow.”

“Turtle, hey? Down y'r wheel, Jim, haul y'r jib to win'ward,” he commanded the man at the wheel; then to the men forward: “Get the dory overboard. Son, Charlie, and you, Wing, tumble in. Wake up now and see you stay so.”

The dory was swung over the side, and the men dropped into her and took their places at the oars. “Give way,” cried the Captain, settling himself in the bow with the gaff in his hand. “Hey, Jim!” he shouted to the lookout far above, “hey, lay our course for us.” The lookout nodded, the oars fell, and the dory shot forward in the direction indicated by the lookout.

“Kin you row, son? asked Kitchell, with sudden suspicion. Wilbur smiled.

“You ask Charlie and Wing to ship their oars and give me a pair.” The Captain complied, hesitating.

“Now, what,” he said grimly, “now, what do you think you're going to do, sonny?”

“I'm going to show you the Bob Cook stroke we used in our boat in '95, when we beat Harvard,” answered Wilbur.

Kitchell gazed doubtfully at the first few strokes, then with growing interest watched the tremendous reach, the powerful knee-drive, the swing, the easy catch, and the perfect recover. The dory was cutting the water like a gasoline launch, and between strokes there was the least possible diminishing of the speed.

“I'm a bit out of form just now,” remarked Wilbur, “and I'm used to the sliding seat; but I guess it'll do.” Kitchell glanced at the human machine that once was No. 5 in the Yale boat and then at the water hissing from the dory's bows. “My Gawd!” he said, under his breath. He spat over the bows and sucked the nicotine from his mustache, thoughtfully.

“I ree-marked,” he observed, “as how you had brains, my son.”

A few minutes later the Captain, who was standing in the dory's bow and alternately conning the ocean's surface and looking back to the Chinaman standing on the schooner's masthead, uttered an exclamation:

“Steady, ship your oars, quiet now, quiet, you damn fools! We're right on 'em--four, by Gawd, an' big as dinin' tables!”

The oars were shipped. The dory's speed dwindled. “Out your paddles, sit on the gun'l, and paddle ee-asy.” The hands obeyed. The Captain's voice dropped to a whisper. His back was toward them and he gestured with one free hand. Looking out over the water from his seat on the gun'l, Wilbur could make out a round, greenish mass like a patch of floating seaweed, just under the surface, some sixty yards ahead.

“Easy sta'board,” whispered the Captain under his elbow. “Go ahead, port; e-e-easy all, steady, steady.”

The affair began to assume the intensity of a little drama--a little drama of midocean. In spite of himself, Wilbur was excited. He even found occasion to observe that the life was not so bad, after all. This was as good fun as stalking deer. The dory moved forward by inches. Kitchell's whisper was as faint as a dying infant's: “Steady all, s-stead-ee, sh-stead--”

He lunged forward sharply with the gaff, and shouted aloud: “I got him--grab holt his tail flippers, you fool swabs; grab holt quick--don't you leggo--got him there, Charlie? If he gets away, you swine, I'll rip y' open with the gaff--heave now--heave--there--there--soh, stand clear his nippers. Strike me! he's a whacker. I thought he was going to get away. Saw me just as I swung the gaff, an' ducked his nut.”

Over the side, bundled without ceremony into the boat, clawing, thrashing, clattering, and blowing like the exhaust of a donkey-engine, tumbled the great green turtle, his wet, green shield of shell three feet from edge to edge, the gaff firmly transfixed in his body, just under the fore-flipper. From under his shell protruded his snake-like head and neck, withered like that of an old man. He was waving his head from side to side, the jaws snapping like a snapped silk handkerchief. Kitchell thrust him away with a paddle. The turtle craned his neck, and catching the bit of wood in his jaw, bit it in two in a single grip.

“I tol' you so, I tol' you to stand clear his snapper. If that had been your shin now, eh? Hello, what's that?”

Faintly across the water came a prolonged hallooing from the schooner. Kitchell stood up in the dory, shading his eyes with his hat.

“What's biting 'em now?” he muttered, with the uneasiness of a captain away from his ship. “Oughta left Charlie on board--or you, son. Who's doin' that yellin', I can't make out.”

“Up in the crow's nest,” exclaimed Wilbur. “It's Jim, see, he's waving his arms.”

“Well, whaduz he wave his dam' fool arms for?” growled Kitchell, angry because something was going forward he did not understand.

“There, he's shouting again. Listen--I can't make out what he's yelling.”

“He'll yell to a different pipe when I get my grip of him. I'll twist the head of that swab till he'll have to walk back'ard to see where he's goin'. Whaduz he wave his arms for--whaduz he yell like a dam' philly-loo bird for? What's him say, Charlie?”

“Jim heap sing, no can tell. Mebbee--tinkum sing, come back chop-chop.”

“We'll see. Oars out, men, give way. Now, son, put a little o' that Yale stingo in the stroke.”