I pulled myself up and looked over the side, where the great fish was
floating quite dead, with one of the sailors making fast a line round
the thin part of the tail.

"Why, I know," I cried; "he dragged me down."

It was all plain enough now. The captain had fitted a lanyard to the
shaft of the lance, so that it should not be lost, and I had got this
twisted round one of my wrists in such a way that I was literally
snatched out of the boat when it tightened; and I felt a strange kind of
shudder run through me as the doctor went on to say softly:

"I had begun to give you up, Joe, my boy."

"Only the shark give it up as a bad job, my lad. That stroke of yours
finished him, and he come up just in time for us to get you into the
boat and pump the wind into you again--leastwise the doctor did."

"The best way to restore respiration, captain."

"When you've tried my plan first, my lad," replied the captain. "What
is it drowns folks, eh? Why, water. Too much water, eh? Well, my plan
is to hold up head down'ards and feet in the air till all the salt-water
has runned out."

"The surest way to kill a half-drowned person, captain," said the doctor
authoritatively.

"Mebbe it is, mebbe it isn't," said the captain surlily. "All I know is
that I've brought lots back to life that way, and rolling 'em on
barrels."

I shuddered and shivered, and the men laughed at my drenched aspect, a
breach of good manners that the captain immediately resented.

"There, make fast that shark to the ring-bolt, and lay hold of your oars
again. Pull away, there's a hurricane coming afore long."

As he spoke he looked long at a dull yellow haze that seemed to be
creeping towards the sun.

"Had we not better let the fish go?" said the doctor anxiously.

"No, I want the oil," said the captain. "We've had trouble enough to
get him, and I don't mean to throw him away. Now, my lads, pull."

The men tugged steadily at their oars, but the dead fish hung behind
like a log, and our progress was very slow. Every now and then it gave
a slight quiver, but that soon ceased, and it hung quite passively from
the cord.

I was leaning over the stem, feeling rather dizzy and headachy when, all
at once, the captain shouted to me to "cut shark adrift; we're making
too little way. That schooner's too far-off for my liking." I drew my
knife, and after hauling the fish as closely as I could to the side I
divided the thin line, and as I did so