From the way that the shark was thrashing and beating the water, one would think that the three-inch rope would part from the strain at any minute.
"Stop the ship!" cried the cook.
"Stop hell," retorted the Captain.
"You will never land him," insisted the cook; "she has too much bloody way on her."
"I'll attend to this ship; I am master here," said the Captain angrily.
"Master, you are?" here discipline between master and cook was fused away into the northeast trades. The cook, coming to attention with all the dignity of a newly-made corporal, said: "Captain, I'll have you understand that I have no masters, and"—shaking his fist at the Captain, and slapping himself on the breast, "do you think that I have always been a sea-cook?"
Under other conditions the Captain would have had him put in irons, but there was now too much at stake for him to even think of such a thing. For is not time the essence of all things? With this demon of the sea dangling on the end of a sixty-foot line, every minute seemed a century with the chance that hook, meat and line might sail away into fathomless depths.
"Get to Hell forward to your galley! I will send for you when I need you"—Here the cook, with rage interrupted:
"To Hell with you, shark and ship! The American Consul shall hear about this!" With this parting shot he slouched forward to the galley.
"Here, damn you, here," continued the Captain, forgetting him on the instant. "Here, you, Nelson, put a sheep-shank in the shark-line—now hook your block in. That's the way. Hoist away on your tackle." After giving these orders he hopped up on the deck-load to direct the course of the incoming shark. With the crew pulling all their might, we could not get him in an inch.