y his
enormous fins, "one, two, three, and over with him!"

With a cry of "Yo, heave he!" and a hearty drag the great fish was
turned over on his back; and then Snowball, stepping forward once more,
placed himself astride the creature and, with a quick, powerful stroke
of his knife, slit open its belly, and so put an end to its sufferings.
But so tenacious of life was it that even after the removal of the vital
organs the heart was seen to be still expanding and contracting, which
it continued to do for fully five minutes after being taken out of the
fish. The head was next cut off and the back-bone removed for
preservation as "curios," after which the mutilated carcass was thrown
overboard and the decks washed down.

Ritson did not wait for the completion of this operation, but, leaving
its superintendence to Mr Bowen (who, like the rest of the watch below,
had come on deck to see what was the cause of the unusual tumult),
retired once more with the telescope to his former post in the
main-topmast cross-trees, and resumed his scrutiny of the strange
schooner.

George noticed this, and vaguely wondering what had so greatly excited
his second mate's curiosity, glanced in the direction to which the
telescope was pointing, to find to his surprise that the upper half of
the stranger's topsail was visible from the deck.

"Why, Ritson," he hailed, "the schooner must have a little air of wind,
surely; she is nearing us perceptibly."

Ritson, entirely contrary to nautical etiquette, made no reply to the
skipper's hail, but remained with his eye immovably glued to the tube
for a full minute longer, when he gently closed the instrument and
descended slowly to the deck.

Arrived there, he walked up to Captain Leicester, and first glancing
cautiously round to make sure that no one was within ear-shot, murmured
in a low voice--

"She's heading as straight for us as she can steer, sir, _with six
sweeps out_--_three of a side_. That means, sir, that her skipper wants
so badly to get alongside of us, that he's noways particular about the
trouble he takes to bring him here."

George gave a low involuntary whistle of astonishment.

"That is queer news indeed," he remarked after a contemplative pause.
"And you think then, Ritson, that the craft is a--"

"A rover, sir; neither more nor less," answered the second mate. "She
ain't French, I'm certain; she ain't got the look of it; besides, the
Johnnies wouldn't ventur so far