"You have done it this time, my lad."

"Not caught yet!" said Mark. "How are we to get it in the boat?"

"Oh, I'll show you about that," said the boatswain, loosening his hold
of the rock, and, watching his opportunity, he gaffed the great fish
cleverly with the boat-hook by drawing it into the prize's gills, and
the next instant it lay splashing at the bottom of the boat.

"Well done us!" cried Small, as Mark stood gazing down at his prize, a
magnificent fish of over forty pounds weight, with brilliant silvery
scales double the size of those of a salmon, and all flashing in the
morning sunshine.

"What is it?" said Mark.

"Well, I don't rightly know," said Small drily. "'Taint a sole."

"Why, of course not."

"Nor it arn't a salmon, you see, cause it's got all them stickles on its
back. Some kind o' shark, I should say. Look at its teeth."

"And you've been to sea all your life, Small, and don't know a shark!"
cried Mark. "Why, I know that isn't a shark, or anything of the kind."

"Yes, because you've had books to go at all your life, my boy, while
I've been knocking about in ships. Man may learn to be a good sailor,
but he don't learn much else aboard ship afore the mast."

"Never mind," said Mark; "the question for us to settle is--Is it good
to eat?"

"Just you wait till we've cooked him over the fire," said Small, as he
extracted the hook from the fierce jaws. "I'll answer that question
then. 'Most anything's good to eat when you're half starved, my lad.
I've knowed men eat their shoes. Going to have another try?"

"Yes, I should like to get some more," said Mark; and as soon as the
captured fish was laid under the thwart he baited and threw out again.

This time he waited so long that he began to draw in the line, expecting
to find the bait gone; but long before it reached the surface it was
seized by another ravenous fish, and after a sharp fight this was also
got into the boat, proving to be something similar to the other, but
only about half the size.

"As I said before, I says it again," said Small oracularly, "we sha'n't
starve here."

Mark thought of his words as he paddled ashore--Small cleaning the fish
the while and throwing the offal overboard for ground-bait, as he said--
when he helped carry the prizes up to the fire in triumph, for there he
found that the major had returned, he and Widgeon having quite a load of
shell-fish; the men had cut down the cocoa-nut tree, and the nut