CHARGED BY A WILD SEI WHALE 



swiftly and silently here and there, sometimes show- 

 ing a flash of white as one turned on its side. 



They were giant sharks drawn hy the floating car- 

 cass as steel is drawn by a magnet. Like the vul- 

 tures which wheel and circle in the western sky far 

 beyond the reach of human sight, watching for the 

 death of some poor, thirst-smitten, desert brute, so 

 these vultures of the sea quickly gathered about the 

 dead whale. I watched them silently fasten to the 

 animal's side, tearing away great cup-shaped chunks 

 of blubber, and shivered as I thought of what would 

 happen to a man if he fell overboard among these 

 horrible, white-eyed sea-ghosts. 



Within three minutes of the time when the whale 

 had been drawn to the surface over twenty sharks, 

 each one accompanied by its little striped pilot fish 

 swimming just behind its fins, were biting at the 

 carcass. 



"Dame, dame, they'll eat my whale up," shouted 

 Andersen in Japanese. "Bo's'n, bring the small har- 

 poon." 



One big shark, the most persistent of the school, 

 had sunk his teeth in the whale's side and, although 

 half out of water, was tearing away at the blubber 

 and paying not the slightest attention to the pieces of 

 old iron which the sailors were showering upon him. 

 When the harpoon was rigged and the line made fast, 

 Andersen climbed out upon the rope-pan in front of 

 the gun and jammed the iron into the shark's back. 

 Even then the brute waited to snatch one more mouth- 

 ful before it slid off the carcass into the water. It 



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