“The first mate and I then went on the poop, and looked well all round. On the bulwarks near the stern there was a slight dent, and close beside it a streak of blood: there was no doubt that the boom in its first swing had knocked the skipper clean overboard, and the chances were, had smashed some of his limbs too. We never saw him more. The first mate took the command, and I told him about the captain’s vision; he laughed at me, and told me I was a fool to believe in such rubbish, and recommended me not to talk about it. I quietly tore the leaf out of the log-book, and have got it now. I will show it you.” Saying this he went down to his cabin and brought me up the sheet of paper; which I read, and found it as he had described. “We went on to the Mauritius, loaded, and returned to England. I had no opportunity of fulfilling my promise of writing to the captain’s wife, so immediately I could leave the ship I started for Gosport to tell her about his loss.
“I found her house from the address she had given me, and walked once or twice up and down to consider all I should say to her. It was any way a difficult thing and one I did not like doing, having to relate the death of her husband; and besides, women are inclined to think there is always some neglect in others if an accident happens to those they love. At last I plucked up courage and knocked at the door. A decent-looking servant came, and upon my asking if Mrs Wharton were at home, she replied, ‘Mrs Wharton don’t live here. Mrs Somebody or other lives here, and she ain’t at home.’ I asked if she could tell me where, to find Mrs Wharton, and was informed by the maid that she was a stranger and knew nothing; but the baker over the way, she thought, could tell me. I went over and asked the baker’s wife, and she informed me that Mrs Wharton had been dead nearly five months, and her aunt had moved away. I was thunderstruck at this intelligence, and immediately inquired the date of her death; she looked over a daybook in the drawer, and told me. I put it down in my memorandum-book, and when I got back to the ship I found the date the same as that noted on the leaf of the log-book as the one that the captain had seen her off the Cape. Now, I never was superstitious before this, nor am I alarmed now at the idea of seeing ghosts, but still there is a queer sort of feeling comes over me when I think of that night.
“When I got home to my friends, I told the clergyman and the doctor what had been seen. The first explained it to me as an optical delusion, but acknowledged that it was very curious; the other looked into my eyes as though he were trying to see some signs of insanity, and told me it was very likely that the captain’s supper had disagreed with him that night, or that he was half-seas-over.
“Now, I haven’t much learning myself, but I do despise what I have seen called science; men who study books only, can’t know so much as those who see the real things; I haven’t patience with men who, never having travelled much, or been across the oceans, quietly tell the world that what a hundred sane men’s experienced eyes have seen and known as a sea-serpent is discovered by their scientific reasoning to be a bundle of seaweed, or a shoal of porpoises, because they saw once at Brighton one or the other, when even a land-lubber could hardly have been mistaken. My wise doctor tried to prove that what the skipper had seen with his own eyes was nothing but the result of a supper he hadn’t eaten, or the fumes of some grog that weren’t swallowed; because it happened not to be accounted for in his fusty old books in any other way—I would sooner be without science, if this is the result.
“Bless you, sir, I never yet saw one of your great learned sailors worth much in an extremity. Give me a fellow who acts from his practical experience. A man much given to be particular about ‘how the log-book is kept,’ about dotting i’s and crossing t’s, is generally struck of a heap, if the ship happens to be taken aback, or a squall carries away her gear. While he is going over his logarithms to know what should be done, the commonest seaman on board could set all to rights. Mind I don’t run down any book-learning you may have, but I only say it ain’t equal to experience, and it never will convince me that, if I see a square-rigged ship a mile off, I am only mistaken, and that a man in London knows by science that it was a fore-and-aft schooner and close to me; or if I see a school of whales, he knows they are only flying fish, because science tells him the whale does not frequent the part where I saw them; and that my supper caused me to mistake one for the other.” With these sentiments the mate ended his tale, and I now proceed with the narrative of the voyage.
While near the line, we caught a shark, which was the first animal bigger than a hare that I had ever assisted in destroying. As the method employed on this fellow was of a more sporting character than usually attends the capture of this monster, I will give in detail our proceedings.
Our voracious friend having been seen some hundred yards astern steadily following in our wake, we procured two joints of a lightning-conductor (that had lain in the hold since our leaving England, and which was intended to protect the ship from the fluid that makes so excellent a messenger but so direful an enemy), and lashed a large hook on to one end. The copper wire was stout enough to resist the teeth of the monster, and a common log-line was made fast to the wire, with a second line in case of his requiring much play. Over the stern went the hook, baited with a most tempting piece of pork; the ship was just moving through the water at the time, the whole sea looking like a vast lake of molten silver.
We watched our cannibal as the bait came near him, he did not keep us long in doubt, but with a rush put his nose against the pork, pronounced it good, turned on his side, and both pork and hook disappeared. We gave a smart tug at the line, and found him fast.
I expected a tremendous trout-like rush, or some great display of shark force; but he merely gave a wag of his tail, lowered his dorsal fin under water, and steadily dragged back on the line. We met him with a firm pull, and brought him near the ship, when he made a sudden dive directly downward, nearly carrying out both our lines.
I feared now that we should lose him, but he seemed to have gone deep enough to suit his taste, and turned slowly up again; all his movements could be seen as distinctly in this transparent water as those of a bird in the air. One or two more dives of a similar character at length tired him, and he was brought close to the vessel. One of the seamen then sent a harpoon with deadly aim right through him, which caused a furious struggle, by which the hook was snapped short off from the wire. The harpoon, however, held firm, and its rope served to guide a bowling-knot, which caught under the shark’s fins, and he was dragged on to the deck. A storm of blows and a chop on his tail soon reduced his strength, which had shown itself in struggles and leaps; his demise was then peaceful. He was fully seven feet long, and seemed a string of muscles. He disappointed me by his craven surrender; a salmon would have given far more play.