“Haul away, lads!” cried the old mate.
While Ben Snatchblock slipped a running bowline over the creature’s head, its tail coming to the surface, he dexterously got another round it, and, in spite of its violent struggles, it was hoisted on board.
“Stand clear of him, lads,” shouted Higson, though the men did not need the warning.
The crew seizing axes, capstan-bars, and boarding pikes, attacked the captive monster, as it lay writhing on deck, lashing out furiously with its tail, and every now and then opening its huge jaws, as if even then it had hopes of catching one of its assailants. It showed what it could do by biting off the head of a boarding-pike, which Ben thrust into its mouth. With wild shouts the men sprang round it, rushing in, every now and then, to give it a blow with an axe or capstan-bar, and leaping back again to avoid its tail; for even though its head was nearly smashed in, that continued striking out, and lashing the deck as furiously as at first, till Higson came down on it with a well-aimed blow of his axe, which instantly paralysed it, and it lay motionless.
“We’ll make sure, lads, he don’t come to life again,” exclaimed Ben, as he set to work to chop off the tail.
The head was treated in the same way; and a number of slices being cut off the body, the remainder was thrown overboard. Murray, wondering what the hubbub was about, had come on deck, and was an amused spectator of the scene. The men no longer thought of the heat, and, in spite of it, regaled themselves heartily on shark-steaks at dinner. The capture of the shark, too, brought them good luck, they declared; for a favourable breeze shortly afterwards sprang up, and held till the northern coast of the South American continent was sighted. Before, however, Carthagena, the port at which Murray had been directed to call, first could be made, it again fell calm. He felt the delay very trying. He had been eagerly hoping to get in by the evening, to ascertain if anything had been heard of the Sarah Jane, and now another whole day or more might pass before he could gain any information. The coast lay in sight, its ranges of light-blue mountains looking like clouds, rising above the horizon but proving that they were mountains by never altering their shape or position. Higson whistled as energetically as usual, but not a catspaw played over the surface of the mirror-like sea, and not an inch nearer the shore did the brig move during the day. The night passed by, and the hot sun rose once more out of the still slumbering ocean. The day wore on, but no breeze came. The men, of course, were not idle. Murray had from the first exercised them at their guns, and especially in the use of the long one. He remembered the advice Admiral Triton had given to Jack Rogers, and which Jack had repeated to him—
“Don’t mind throwing a few rounds of shot away; you’ll make the better use of those you have remaining.”
He, accordingly, had a floating target rigged and carried out to a distance, and each day during a calm he exercised the men at it for some hours, till they learnt to handle their long gun with as much ease as the carronades.
“Though we miss that mark sometimes, we shall manage to hit a larger one without fail if it comes in our way, my lads!” he sang out, to encourage the crew as they were working away at it during the morning.
After dinner the men were allowed some time to rest, and all was quiet. An observation showed that the brig’s position had not altered since the previous noon.