Silas did not take very long to get his party—his fishing-party, as he called it—into working order. He evidently meant business, and expected it, too. He had seven or eight long lines, to each of which was attached a piece of chain and an immense shark-hook. These were baited with pieces of blubber; the men were armed with long knives and clubs. So sure was Silas Grig of capturing a big haul of these sea-fiends, the Greenland sharks, that he had a large fire of wood lighted on the ice at some little distance, and over it, suspended by a kind of shears, hung an immense cauldron. In this it was intended to boil the livers of the sharks in order to extract the oil, which is the most valuable part of the animal.
Until tempted by huge pieces of seal-flesh hardly a shark showed fin; but when once their appetites were wetted then—!
I cannot, nor will I attempt to describe this battle with the sharks, although such a fight I have been eyewitness to. Sometimes as many as two were hauled out at once; it required the united strength of fifteen or twenty men to land them. Then came the struggle on the ice, the clubbing, the axing, and the death, during which many a man bit the snow, though none were grievously wounded. Before the sun pointed to midnight, between thirty and forty immense sharks had been captured, and the oil from their livers weighed nearly a ton.
Poor Rory—to whom all the best of the fun and all the worst misfortunes seemed always to fall—had a terrible adventure during the battle. Carried away by his enthusiasm, with club in hand, he was engaging one of the largest sharks landed. The brute bent himself suddenly, then as suddenly straightened himself out, and away went boy Rory, like an arrow from a cross-bow, alighting in the very centre of the pool. For a moment every one was struck dumb with horror!
But Rory himself never lost his presence of mind. He remembered what Silas had said about splashing and kicking to keep the sharks at bay. Splash? I should think he did splash, and kick, too; indeed, kicking is hardly any name for his antics. He made a wheel of himself in the water. He seemed all arms and legs, and as for his head, it was just as often up as down, and vice versâ; and all the while he was issuing orders to those on the bank—a word or two at a time, whenever his head happened to be uppermost, so that in the midst of the splashing and spluttering his speech ran like this:
“Stand by”—(splutter, splutter)—“you fellows”—(splash, splash)—“up there”—(splutter) “to pull quick”—(splash)—“as soon as!”—(splutter, splutter)—“catch the rope.”—(splash, splash)—“Now lads, now!”—(splutter, splutter, splash, splash, splutter, splutter, splash).
“Hurrah!” he cried, when he found himself on the ice. “Hurrah! boys. Cheer, boys, cheer. Safe to bank! Hurrah! and both my legs as sound as a bell, and never a toe missing from any single one of the two o’ them. Hurrah! Sure it’s myself’ll be Queen o’ the May to-morrow. Hurrah!”
Yes, reader, the very next day was May-day, and on that day there are such doings on Greenland ships as you never see in England.