hat ever crossed the wide ocean, and
much more than any naturalist that never did. He had seen a shark drawn
aboard with a great steel hook in its stomach,--he had seen its belly
ripped up with a jack-knife, the whole of the intestines taken out, then
once more thrown into the sea; and after all this rough handling he had
seen the animal not only move its fins, but actually swim off some
distance from the ship! He knew, moreover, that a shark may be cut in
twain,--have the head separated from the body,--and still exhibit signs
of vitality in both parts for many hours after the dismemberment! Talk
of the killing of a cat or an eel!--a shark will stand as much killing
as twenty cats or a bushel of eels, and still exhibit symptoms of life.

The shark's most vulnerable part appears to be the snout,--just where
the sailor had chosen to make his hit; and a blow delivered there with
an axe, or even a handspike, usually puts a termination to the career of
this rapacious tyrant of the great deep.

"I've knocked him into the middle o' next week," cried Ben, exultingly,
as he saw the shark heel over on its side. "It ain't goin' to trouble
us any more. Where's the other un?"

"Gone out that way," answered the boy, pointing in the direction taken
by the second and smaller of the two sharks. "He whipped the handspike
out of my hands, and he's craunched it to fragments. See! there are
some of the pieces floating on the water!"

"Lucky you let go, lad; else he might ha' pulled you from the raft. I
don't think he'll come back again after the reception we've gi'ed 'em.
As for the other, it's gone out o' its senses. Dash my buttons, if't
ain't goin' to sink! Ha! I must hinder that. Quick, Will'm, shy me
that piece o' sennit: we must secure him 'fore he gives clean up and
goes to the bottom. Talk o' catching fish wi' hook an' line! Aha!
This beats all your small fry. If we can secure it, we'll have fish
enough to last us through the longest Lent. There now! keep on the
other edge of the craft so as to balance me. So-so!"

While the sailor was giving these directions, he was busy with both
hands in forming a running-noose on one end of the sennit-cord, which
William on the instant had handed over to him. It was but the work of a
moment to make the noose; another to let it down into the water; a third
to pass it over the upper jaw of the shark; a fourth to draw it taut,
and tighten the cord around the creature's teeth.