“But, oh! my! ain’t the old terror mad, though?” exclaimed George. “Just see how he pulls, would you, boys?”
“Give him another turn, Nick,” advised Jack.
Unfastening the falls, Nick took the second hitch, and as before this was some distance below the snubbing post.
Again he bent his stout back, and, aided by the tackle, he succeeded in bringing the struggling sea monster closer in to the shore.
Everything was working smoothly, and by the time he had repeated his effort a good many times they could see from the terrific splashing that the prisoner was already in shoal water.
“Do you think I’m going to get him?” gasped poor, winded Nick, as he wiped his streaming forehead, and tried to get ready for the hardest tug of all; for, with a dead weight on the sand to haul, he could no longer count on the buoyancy of the water.
“Well, I should smile, yes,” declared George. “At him again, Ginger; never say die! Set ’em up in the other alley! This is a great treat to us, Nick, I tell you!”
But Nick was already busy. With the rope over his shoulder, and his toes digging in the sand, he tugged away like a good fellow, gaining inch by inch. This time he succeeded in dragging the shark all the way out of the water, so that it lay exposed to their view.
“Hurroo! he done it!” shouted Jimmy, with an utter disregard for the rules of grammar, that would have horrified his teachers, had any of them heard him; but Jimmy had one set of rules to mark his vacation manners, and another covering his connection with the seats of learning; and when he wished could talk just as correctly as the next one.
They gathered around, full of wonder at the size and ferocity of the monster, that even then lay there on the sand, snapping savagely at everything.