CATCHING A SHAEK. 219 



a customer needs stout gear ; a fourth is standing on the 

 taffrail, keeping an eye on the monster, that now drops 

 off, and now comes gliding up, a light-green mass, through 

 the blue water, till his whiteness nearly touches the sur- 

 face, and telling the villain aU the while, with uncouth 

 maledictions, that his time is coming. The mate is on 

 the jib-boom wielding the grains, whose trident-prongs 

 he has been for the last half-hour sharpening with a file, 

 ready to take by force any one of the hated race who 

 may be too suspicious for the bait astern. And now the 

 skipper himseK comes up, for even dignity itself cannot 

 resist the temptation, and with his own brawny hands 

 puts on the enticing pork, and lowers away. 



'Tis twirling and eddying in the wash of the ship's 

 counter; the crew are divided in their allegiance — half 

 cluster at the quarter to watch the captain's success, half 

 at the cat-heads to see the mate's harpooning. There 

 scuttle up the two little pilot-fishes, in their banded livery 

 of blue and brown, from their station one on each side 

 of the shark's nose : they hurry to the bait, sniff at it, 

 nibble at it, and then back in all haste to their huge 

 patron, giving his grimness due information of the treat 

 that awaits hiuL See how eagerly he receives it ! with 

 a lateral wave of his powerful tail he shoots ahead, and 

 is in an instant at the pork. " Look out there ! stand by 

 to take a turn of the line round a belaying pin, for he 's 

 going to bite, and he 11 give us a sharp tug ! " Every 

 pair of eyes is wide open, and every mouth, too ; for the 

 monster turns on his side, and prepares to take in the 



