THE ENGLISH WHALERS IO3 



hot soup and keeping a place on either side of him for 

 each of the lads. 



As the trio stood by the galley door waiting for the cook 

 to fill their plates with boiled cod they heard the sound of 

 a distant cannon. 



'Engelsmen!' muttered one of the Dutchmen and leav- 

 ing his plate on the mess table he scrambled up the com- 

 panionway with a dozen others behind him. Jonathan 

 was last to reach the upper deck but he was just in time to 

 to see the splash of a second cannon ball as it fell across 

 the bows of the leading ship which was nosing her way 

 close-hauled into the entrance of a broad ice-free fiord. 

 As the Der Browery rounded the protecting headland the 

 Dutch crew swore and waved their clenched fists at two 

 ships which now came into sight. They were fine tall 

 vessels distinguishable from the Dutchmen only by the 

 red ensigns of the English merchant navy that fluttered 

 from their spankers. Along the bulwarks of the nearer 

 of the pair Jonathan recognised the black squares of the 

 gunports that told him that she was armed like the 

 Dutch commodore; and even as he watched there came 

 from her side a spurt of red flame followed by a puflf of 

 white smoke and another shot fell across the bows of the 

 Dutch leader. Surely, he thought, England is not at war 

 with the European countries now; he would have been 

 less puzzled if he had known of the jealousies that had 

 so long existed between the whaling fleets of the two 

 countries; jealousies that had started a hundred years 

 ago over the possession of the once famous whaling bays 

 of Spitzbergen. 



'Come, Jonathan,' said Joseph, *let us seek out our 

 Enghsh speaking friend and ask him what it is that ails 

 these countrymen of yours.' 



They found their interpreter, a short, round, blond- 

 bearded man in his forties who had served in the whale- 

 ships of many countries, sitting on a cask philosophically 



