id Tom, looking up at me. "I've got
a spite agin that feller. He's been up twice already. Ah! hand it down
here, and two or three of ye stand by to hold on by the line. There he
comes, the big villain!"

The shark came close to the side of the whale at that moment, and Tom
sent the harpoon right down his throat.

"Hold on hard," shouted Tom.

"Ay, ay," replied several of the men as they held on to the line, their
arms jerking violently as the savage fish tried to free itself. We
quickly reeved a line through a block at the fore yard-arm, and hauled
it on deck with much difficulty. The scene that followed was very
horrible, for there was no killing the brute. It threshed the deck with
its tail, and snapped so fiercely with its tremendous jaws, that we had
to keep a sharp look out lest it should catch hold of a leg. At last
its tail was cut off, the body cut open, and all the entrails taken out,
yet even after this it continued to flap and thresh about the deck for
some time, and the heart continued to contract for twenty minutes after
it was taken out and pierced with a knife.

I would not have believed this had I not seen it with my own eyes. In
case some of my readers may doubt its truth, I would remind them how
difficult it is, to kill some of those creatures, with which we are all
familiar. The common worm, for instance, may be cut into a number of
small pieces, and yet each piece remains alive for some time after.

The skin of the shark is valued by the whalemen, because, when cleaned
and dry, it is as good as sand-paper, and is much used in polishing the
various things they make, out of whales' bones and teeth.

When the last piece of blubber had been cut off our whale, the great
chain that held it to the ship's side was cast off, and the now useless
carcass sank like a stone, much to the sorrow of some of the smaller
birds, which, having been driven away by their bigger comrades, had not
fed so heartily as they wished, perhaps! But what was loss to the gulls
was gain to the sharks, which could follow the carcass down into the
deep and devour it at their leisure.

"Now, lads," cried the mate, when the remains had vanished, "rouse up
the fires, look alive, my hearties!"

"Ay, ay, sir," was the ready reply, cheerfully given, as every man
sprang to his appointed duty.

And so, having "cut in" our whale, we next proceeded to "try out" the
oil.

CHAPTER FIVE.

A STORM, A MAN OVERBOARD, AND A