not sufficiently near as yet to save
me.

I felt the tip of the monster's nose against my shoe. I lunged out a
tremendous kick, which ought to have sent several of its teeth down its
throat; at any rate, it sent him backward about a foot. Meanwhile, I
struck out more fiercely than ever, but the brute recovered itself and
was at me again.

My strength was now quite exhausted. How I managed to hold out so long
puzzles me now. I was about to sink from sheer exhaustion. In another
moment my legs must have been off, had not one of the officers of the
ship thrown out a rope, which I clutched eagerly, and being speedily
hauled on deck, the monster was baulked of its prey.

Whilst yet dangling in air, before my feet had time to touch the deck, I
heard a "bang," and, looking behind me, to my intense relief, I saw the
corpse of my dread foe bobbing up and down in the waves, and staining
the water with his blood.

"So much for Thomas," thought I.

The sailors were just about to lug it on board, when at this juncture I
awoke.

Lucky for me that my flight was so precipitate. If _she_ had crossed my
path at the last moment I thoroughly believe the very sight of her sweet
face would have made me consent to the operation. Poor Lurline! But what
is the use of giving way to sensibility, gentlemen? And, as to losing
one's legs, it is bad enough to lose them in an engagement for the
honour and glory of one's country, but to have them bitten off by a
shark, or amputated by a mer-surgeon, at the caprice of a mer-king, and
a fish's tail substituted in lieu thereof, is a thing that Toughyarn
can't quite stomach.

Supposing me to have been weak enough to have submitted to the operation
at the tears and entreaties of Lurline, it becomes a very different
matter when my limbs are exacted as a forfeiture, and imperiously
demanded by an infuriated parent.

Toughyarn may be as weak as a child in the hands of a pretty woman, but
he won't be _forced_ to anything by the greatest tyrant that ever
existed.

* * * * *

"Bravo, Toughyarn!" cried all the company, with one voice.

This enthusiasm was as much in praise of the sentiment that the captain
had wound up with as for the story itself.

"I knew the captain wouldn't be beaten in a yarn by the best of us,"
said Hardcase, "although he did find mine rather difficult to swallow."

Cheers and rattling of glasses followed, and the captain's health was
drunk wi