Page:The Catalpa Expedition (1897).djvu/124

100 At three o'clock on the afternoon of the storm a vessel was sighted on the other tack with nothing set but the main spencer and foretopmast staysail. She rolled until her keel was almost in sight, and Captain Anthony not only recognized her as a whaleship, but from the brightness of the copper on the vessel's bottom, which was exposed as she reeled in the great seas, he knew that she had left home but recently. But Captain Anthony realized that his presence in this locality would be difficult to explain to a whaling captain who knew that he had sailed ostensibly on a short voyage in the Atlantic, and he heroically determined to forego his inclination to hear the latest news from home. The little bark wore around and, came on the same tack with the Catalpa, but she was soon left far astern.

At midnight, however, the wind died out, and the next day the little bark was in sight. The weather was genial, the sun glowing, and to all appearances there never blew a gale over so placid a sea. Captain Anthony decided to speak the vessel. So he hauled aback, and when the stranger came up, lowered a boat and boarded her. She proved to be the Platina of New Bedford. Captain Walter Howland, who commanded her, was an intimate friend, but Captain Anthony was not so well pleased at the meeting as he might have been under other circumstances. The Platina was four months out from home and had fifty barrels of oil.

"What under heavens are you doing here, Anthony," said Captain Howland. "You're the last