The Strife of the Sea

by T. Jenkins Hains

The whale now became weaker, and except for an occasional lunge lay quietly beating the sea with his flukes.

The shark now began to bolt large pieces of him at his leisure, and the rest seeing him at work came sneaking back again. They formed a circle around the dying monster, and rushed in and chopped him whenever they dared. In a little while he began swimming slowly in a circle, and then finally stopped. He gave one final sidelong blow with his flukes that broke every bone in a shark’s body that happened in its way. Then he lay still and rolled upon his sides. He was dead. And now from the lonely depths where all was apparently a void, the scavengers came sneaking forth.

Big sharks and little sharks, hammerhead and shovel-nose, all began to circle about the huge carcass, and watch for a place to chop a piece of blubber out. They crowded and jostled each other, and sometimes even fought for a place alongside. Above them the whale-birds screamed and squawked as they hovered and lit for an instant to tear at the juicy covering of the carcass.

Our fighter had by this time gorged himself with several hundred pounds of whale beef, and being tired from the exertion of the encounter, he swam slowly away.

In the following weeks of cruising he found smaller game, but he now felt a contempt for all other creatures. He had vanquished the largest animal alive, and the feeling that he could conquer anything made him slow to tackle smaller fish.

For months he cruised to the westward and skirted the shores of the continent, finding enough to eat around the river mouths. In one harbor where there was much offal he lived for several years, only going to sea for a draught of fresh salt water now and then. He grew steadily in size until he reached full twenty feet in length.

His hide was now of a dull grayish-brown, shading to white on his belly. Upon it the little hard lumps of bony substance thickened. His jaws were nearly three feet wide, and he now had six rows of triangles, the outside and largest being over an inch on a side clear of the gums. His eyes were large and bright, and his nose broad and sensitive.

Several ugly little fish followed him around wherever he went. They had flat tops to their heads, and looked like black corrugated chunks of rubber with tails to them, the corrugated part of their heads being on top. With these slits they sucked strongly to the shark when he swam, making him tow them about without any exertion on their part. His hide, however, was too thick to mind a little thing like that, and he finally came to know each one so well by sight that he never made a chop at them. They were about the only living things he let pass him.

As time passed he developed a taste for company. A desire to meet his kind came upon him, and he left the lazy life in the harbor and went to sea again.

He traveled through the West Indies, and there one bright hot day on the reef he met a shark that appeared most friendly. It was a new feeling that came upon him at the meeting, a desire to live in the companionship of the stranger for a time. He even found himself letting her take the first choice of some barracuda he had killed, and from one thing leading to another he waxed very affectionate.