l arm was pressed close over his knuckles.

"Heave!" she cried, laughing with the excitement of the moment. "Heave
all!"--she began the chant of sailors hauling at the ropes. Together,
and bracing their feet against the schooner's rail, they fought out the
fight with the great fish. In a swirl of lather the head and shoulders
came above the surface, the flukes churning the water till it boiled
like the wake of a screw steamship. But as soon as these great fins were
clear of the surface the shark fell quiet and helpless.

Charlie came up with the cutting-in spade, and as the fish hung still
over the side, cut him open from neck to belly with a single movement.
Another Chinaman stood by with a long-handled gaff, hooked out the
purple-black liver, brought it over the side, and dropped it into one of
the deck-tubs. The shark thrashed and writhed, his flukes quivering and
his gills distended. Wilbur could not restrain an exclamation.

"Brutal business!" he muttered.

"Hoh!" exclaimed Moran, scornfully, "cutting-in is too good for him.
Sailor-folk are no friends of such carrion as that."

Other lines were baited and dropped overboard, and the hands settled
themselves to the real business of the expedition. There was no skill
in the matter. The sharks bit ravenously, and soon swarmed about the
schooner in hundreds. Hardly a half minute passed that one of the four
Chinamen that were fishing did not signal a catch, and Charlie and Jim
were kept busy with spade and gaff. By noon the deck-tubs were full. The
lines were hauled in, and the hands set the tubs in the sun to try out
the oil. Under the tropical heat the shark livers almost visibly melted
away, and by four o'clock in the afternoon the tubs were full of a
thick, yellow oil, the reek of which instantly recalled to Wilbur's
mind the rancid smell of the schooner on the day when he had first come
aboard of her. The deck-tubs were emptied into the hogsheads and vats
that stood in the waist of the "Bertha," the tubs scoured, and the lines
and bent shark-hooks overhauled. Charlie disappeared in the galley,
supper was cooked, and eaten upon deck under the conflagration of the
sunset; the lights were set, the Chinamen foregathered in the fo'c'stle
head, smoking opium, and by eight o'clock the routine of the day was at
an end.

So the time passed. In a short time Wilbur could not have said whether
the day was Wednesday or Sunday. He soon tired of the unsportsmanlike
work of k