"Hook him again," shouted Lanyard.
"Oh, Lord! captain, haul me in, haul me in, or I must let go Mr Weevil's leg," sung out cookey.
"Don't, for Heaven's sake, do that thing, my dear Mr Drainings," roared the purser. Here Joey caught him again with the boathook, by the cape of his coat; and, with the assistance of two men, he had got him a foot or two out of the water, when screed,—the cloth, which was of no kindred to that which composed Bailie Jarvie's skirts,—gave way, and down he plumped again souse, and the splashing and struggling, and cursing and coughing, and blowing of fish and men, were renewed with twofold extravagance, until by a fortunate dig the iron hook was finally passed through the head-band of his nether garment, and the canvass fortunately holding, we hauled him in, with Drainings still sticking to him like grim Death, or a big sucker-fish. It was a pity that such a delightful party should be separated, so by slipping down a bowling knot over the shark's head, and under his gills, we hoisted him also in on deck, which he soon had all to himself entirely; I really expected he would have stove it in with the lashing of his tail. We hammered him on the head until we had crushed it to mummy; but, like many other strange fish, he appeared to get on as well without brains as with. In fine, he would have taken the ship from us out and out, had not old Shavings watched his opportunity, and nicked him on the tail with his hatchet, thereby severing his spine, when a complete paralysis instantly took place, and he lay still; but even an hour after he was disembowelled, he writhed about the deck like an eel.
Speaking of sharks, I must taigle you here with another story, which, however lee-like, did actually occur, as the records of the Jamaica Admiralty Court fully prove. But let Dennis Donovan tell it in his own words.
"We were cruising off Cape Tiburoon, to take our chance of any of the French outward-bound that might have preferred to make the passage to Port-au-Prince by the southward of St Domingo. It might have been five in the afternoon,—I was a little middy then, and had dined with the captain that day; a fine fresh forenoon we had had of it,—but the devil a thing was there in sight, not even a small white speck of a sail slipping along shore apparently sailing in the white surf, and standing off full and boldly, as the painters say, from the dark background of bushes fringing the white beach."
"But why take the pains to describe so well what was not there, Dennis?"
"Never you mind, but let me get along; you can pocket the description, Benjie, and keep it for your own use.
"I had just swallowed what I had sense enough to know was considered as my last glass of wine, and had come on deck, when, looking out to leeward, where the setting sun was casting a blinding wake on the blue waters that blazed up in our faces, roasting our skin into the colour of scarlet, I thought I saw a dark object on the very verge of the horizon. From the afternoon having come on thick, this had not been noticed before; but just as I had made the discovery, the lookout man at the masthead hailed, 'a strange sail, abeam of us to leeward.'
"'Thank you for nothing,' responded the crusty lieutenant; 'you blind beetle you, is it now you see it? Why, we can see under her topsails from the deck here.'
"'May be, sir,' answered the man, 'but the weather has been thick as buttermilk down to leeward until this moment.'