re he was dead enough,
and in the mean time the ship had worked down to leeward of us, and was
close at hand. It was a pretty troublesome piece of work to pass the
line around his small in such a nasty sea; we managed to do it after
four or five trials, and he was hauled alongside the ship just as it
began to grow dark. Now I tell you what, lads, it was a very uncommon
sight. There was the ship beginning to roll uneasily in the rising sea,
with a blazing, smoking furnace amidships, looking for all the world as
if she was on fire, and a whale on each side of her. The boats were
hauled up, and then the Captain looked about him.

"'Cut the old whale adrift,' says he; 'we can't tow the two of them in
this weather, and we've got about the best of his oil.'

"So we cut the carcass adrift, and it went rolling off down to leeward.
It hadn't got fifty yards from the ship before all the water around it
was black with sharks' fins, and the next instant a dozen of these
wolves of the sea appeared, leaping and thrashing the water in their mad
struggles to get at the remains of the whale. They seemed like regular
demons, so fiercely did they attack the carcass, ripping away the
remaining shreds of flesh, and smashing the bones in their powerful
jaws. In five minutes the body was torn to pieces and the sharks
disappeared, leaving us to imagine what would have happened to some of
us if a boat had happened to capsize in the chase. Well, the gale
increased in strength, and the sea rose more and more. The Captain
didn't want to lose the whale, so he hove the ship to with the dead
monster under our lee, where he rode pretty well, except that once in a
while when we rolled heavily he would come up against the side of the
ship with a thump that threatened to shake the timbers apart. However,
the Captain said he was going to hang on till he found it was a case of
life or death. All of a sudden we were startled by a terrible cry,

"'Fire!'

"Every man looked in the direction from which the cry came, and we saw a
small but lively flame stealing up near the foot of the mainmast.

"'It's from the try-works!' shouted Bacon.

"Sure enough the gale had taken up every one's attention so that we all
forgot about the fire in the try-works. It hadn't been put out, and now
a coal or a spark or something had fallen on the deck, and the damage
was done."

"'Why didn't you put it out?' asked one of the listeners.

"Put it out!" exclaimed Handsome: