After much careful inquiry
I ascertained what, in the event of a successful voyage, we were
likely to earn. Each of us were on the two hundredth "lay" or
share at $200 per tun, which meant that for every two hundred
barrels of oil taken on board, we were entitled to one, which we
must sell to the ship at the rate of L40 per tun or L4 per
barrel. Truly a magnificent outlook for young men bound to such
a business for three or four years.
*
CHAPTER V
ACTUAL WARFARE. OUR FIRST WHALE
Simultaneous ideas occurring to several people, or thought
transference, whatever one likes to call the phenomenon is too
frequent an occurrence in most of our experience to occasion much
surprise. Yet on the occasion to which I am about to refer, the
matter was so very marked that few of us who took part in the
day's proceedings are ever likely to forget it.
We were all gathered about the fo'lk'sle scuttle one evening, a
few days after the gale referred to in the previous chapter, and
the question of whale-fishing came up for discussion. Until that
time, strange as it may seem, no word of this, the central idea
of all our minds, had been mooted. Every man seemed to shun the
subject, although we were in daily expectation of being called
upon to take an active part in whale-fighting.
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