The Stolen Heart by Jacinta Carey Read Free Book Online

oil!”
     
     
“Aye, Captain,” she shouted, and waved. Then she continued to watch
    the spouting in gleeful fascination.
     
     
They all scrambled into the whaleboats, which were secured on both
    sides of the ship. His boat was on the larboard side, furthest ways
    from the whale, so Jared didn't waste any time grabbing a line tub
    and getting the boat loaded.
     
     
He mopped the remaining soap from his face and dropped his towel. He
    yanked on his shirt without pausing to button it, and slid down the
    davit ropes as the boat splashed into the water.
     
     
They rowed out around the bowsprit and over to the whale pod in
    record time. This was not surprising, though, as the whale boat
    crews had been selected at the start of the voyage, with the Captain
    getting the best of the men.
     
     
He did sometimes try to rotate some of the weaker ones from the
    Mate’s and Second’s boats into his in order to improve them and get
    them used to working as a team no matter who they were assigned to,
    but speed was of the essence now. Especially since Mate had ignored
    the call, he remembered with gritted teeth as he manned the tiller
    of the whaleboat.
     
     
Mate maintained the discipline of the crew at all times. Jared knew
    he was a good officer, a stickler for protocol and routine. But he
    could be too harsh, and was feared, not respected or admired.
     
     
Still, it was only fair to give him his due, for Jared had been
    given him when he had got the command of the Trident . Mate
    had been passed over for promotion. It had to have galled the older
    man, but he had not passed all the tests that were insisted upon by
    the Starbuck Whaling Fleet.
     
     
Jared had had Dare’s tutoring as well as his own native
    intelligence. He had sailed through the tests easily. He’d been made
    up to captain at a young age, though not as young as Dare had been,
    at only twenty. Mate would probably make a good captain one day, but
    he also needed to learn from his mistakes.
     
     
Yet Mate acted as if there was nothing Jared could teach him. As
    much as Jared hated to admit it, the attitude rankled. He knew he
    was no genius like his cousin or younger brother, he thought
    modestly, but he was the Captain. He had paid his dues at
    sea and earned his command, and did deserve a bit more respect than
    Mate afforded him.
     
     
But Jared turned his thoughts to more urgent matters as they drew
    closer and closer to the pod. He was delighted to be in the boats at
    last in frantic pursuit, steering at the back while his boatsteerer,
    also known as the harpooner on non-American whaleships, was at the
    bow.
     
     
The boatsteerer was readying his two irons to stab them into the
    hide of the whale and fasten on the lines which would help capture
    and eventually kill the great creature.
     
     
But first they had to get safely attached and underway. Next they
    would have to wear out the great leviathan and lance him
    successfully.
     
     
That was where Jared came in. He flexed his muscles and rubbed his
    arms, loosening himself up. The tension had him strung as tautly as
    a bow. But it was the thrill, the excitement of the hunt, and the
    knowledge of a quick clean kill and a job well done.
     
     
He did not believe in prolonging their suffering. Nor did he believe
    in slaughtering the infants in an attempt to kill the mother whale
    as well.
     
     
He and Dare both agreed they had seen far too much of that practice
    in recent years, as more and more men, greedy and ambitious, had
    decided that anything they came across was fair game.
     
     
But a baby whale did not produce anything worth having, No, the king
    of the sea was the elusive full-grown male sperm whale coming up to
    the surface to swim as part of a family group, and breathe, before
    diving into the uncharted depths to eat the giants squids it was
    believed were its diet.
     
     
Jared had found squid beaks and some huge tentacles in the stomach
    and intestines of the whales he had