y body aside with a
great effort and felt him sweep past me.

I turned to swim after them and heard Harry's great shout: "You got
him!"

By the time I reached him the fish had turned over on his back and was
floating on the surface, motionless.

We had still to get him ashore, and, exhausted as we were, it was no
easy task. But there was very little current, and after half an hour
of pulling and shoving we got him into shallow water, where we could
find the bottom with our feet. Then it was easier. Desiree waded out
to us and lent a hand, and in another ten minutes we had him high and
dry on the rock.

He was even larger than I had thought. No wonder Harry had called
him--or one like him--a whale. It was all of fifteen feet from his
snout to the tip of his tail. The skin was dead black on top and
mottled irregularly on the belly.

As we sat sharpening the points of our spears on the rock, preparatory
to skinning him, Desiree stood regarding the fish with unqualified
approval. She turned to us:

"Well, I'd rather eat that than those other nasty things."

"Oh, that isn't what we want him for," said Harry, rubbing his finger
against the edge of his spear-point. "He's probably not fit to eat."

"Then why all this trouble?" asked Desiree.

"Dear lady, we expect to ride him home," said Harry, rising to his feet.

Then he explained our purpose, and you may believe that Desiree was the
most excited of the lot as we ripped down the body of the fish from
tail to snout and began to peel off the tough skin.

"If you succeed you may choose the new hangings for my boudoir," she
said, with an attempt at lightness not altogether successful.

"As for me," I declared, "I shall eat fish every day of my life out of
pure gratitude."

"You'll do it out of pure necessity," Harry put in, "if you don't get
busy."

It took us three hours of whacking and slashing and tearing to pull the
fish to pieces, but we worked with a purpose and a will. When we had
finished, this is what we had to show: A long strip of bone, four
inches thick and twelve feet long, and tough as hickory, from either
side of which the smaller bones projected at right angles. They were
about an inch in thickness and two inches apart. The lower end of the
backbone, near the tail, we had broken off.

We examined it and lifted it and bent it half double.

"Absolutely perfect!" Harry cried in jubilation. "Three more like this
and we'll sail down the