They had finished the head-matter, and had it already ladled into casks lashed along the rail. There it would stay for a day or two until it was cool enough to stow below. They had been working on the blubber for some little time, and the smoke coming from the stacks was thick and black, except when red flames belched from them, mixed with the smoke. Sometimes, when oil got into the fire, perhaps from the boiling over of the pots, the stacks sent broad sheets of flame six or eight feet into the air. These cast a ruddy glare over everything, throwing the illuminated portions of the masts and sails and rigging into high relief, and making bloody reflections from the glistening faces and bare arms of the men, and from the crests of breaking seas. Altogether it was a scene of weirdness, but it was evil-smelling, and the whole thing smacked of evil, the men looking like devils feeding the fire to torture some poor lost soul. The mates stood on the little platform in front of the try-pots, watching their kettles of fat, stirring them now and then with their long-handled, long-shanked devil-forks. Now and then they picked up a piece of blubber on their forks, holding it for an instant clear of the mess, to see if the oil was all tried out of it, and if it was thoroughly done. At last one of the pots was ready, and the piece of blubber, after dripping for a moment into the pot, was thrown on deck instead of being dropped back. It was crisp, and the edges curled like a piece of bacon; it sizzled as it lay there, and it would crackle when it had cooled a little. Standing at some distance from the {97} try-pots, as I was, it made my mouth water; but I am afraid it would not have been as good as it looked. At any rate, I was not to try it, for the fire-door was opened, and the piece of bacon thrown in with an iron fork. The boatsteerers now came crowding around, with shallow strainers, or skimmers, about a foot across, with a perforated bottom and a long handle, and took out the pieces of blubber, letting each drain out its oil, and threw them on deck. They were the scraps, and would be used almost immediately for feeding the fires. There was an extra try-pot there, three feet across, with legs a few inches long cast on it, standing on the deck near; in fact, there were two of them. It was intended that the hot scraps should be thrown into one of these, but it was easier to throw them on deck, so that was where most of them went, although some of them got into the pot.