as put on her and got the
old bark hove over so that the hole the whale had smashed (it was right
at the water-line) was where it could be got at. Of course, it was
impossible at first to do anything from inside. There were two men on
the pumps and they kept steadily at work, now I tell you.

Mr. Rudd, the carpenter, was not aboard; but Captain Webb did all that
could be done at the moment. He put slings under the arms of two men and
let them down the canted side of the craft, on either side of the great
gap. Then canvas was let down--three thicknesses of heavy, new
cloth--and this was laid over the hole after the splinters were cut
away, and tacked to the hull, cleats being used to hold it in place all
the way around.

Meanwhile the tar-buckets had been heated up, and those fellows gave the
canvas and the hull all about it a good coating of tar. We ran several
miles on this tack, and until the job was completed. Then, when the men
and the tar-buckets were inboard again, the Scarboro was put over on the
other tack and we beat back toward the whaleboats.

I can't say that no water came in; but we could keep the water down by
working steadily at the pumps; and before night we had the other boats
aboard, and three whales--including the old bull that had done the
damage--strung together nearby. We could do nothing toward cutting up
and trying-out the whales until the bark was safe.

A sharp blow just then would have fixed us, and that's a fact. Mr. Rudd
and his helpers went below and broke out enough cargo to get at the hole
stove in her side. Meanwhile we had to keep the pump brakes moving and
the water that flowed from the pipes and out at the hawser-holes was as
clear as the sea itself. The old bark had settled a good bit, and we
were by no means out of danger.

Here we were, by the Captain's reckoning, all of four hundred miles
southwest of Cape St. Antonio, which is south of the huge mouth of the
de la Plata. To set sail for the principal port of Argentina--or any
other port--would not suit Captain Hiram Rogers a little bit. Nor am I
at all sure that, crippled as she was, the bark could have got to land.

Mr. Rudd would be some days repairing the damage done by the fighting
whale. And meanwhile, what was going to become of poor Ben Gibson?

For our cheerful, boyish second mate was badly hurt. Consider: the whale
had actually shut his jaws on Ben, and that one crunch should, by good
rights, have finished the youn