ughs:

"Man-play, Miss Brewster. Somewhat rougher, I warrant, than what you
have been used to, but still-man-play. The shark was not in the
reckoning. It--"

But at this juncture, Mugridge, who had lifted his head and ascertained
the extent of his loss, floundered over on the deck and buried his teeth
in Wolf Larsen's leg. Wolf Larsen stooped, coolly, to the Cockney, and
pressed with thumb and finger at the rear of the jaws and below the ears.
The jaws opened with reluctance, and Wolf Larsen stepped free.

"As I was saying," he went on, as though nothing unwonted had happened,
"the shark was not in the reckoning. It was--ahem--shall we say
Providence?"

She gave no sign that she had heard, though the expression of her eyes
changed to one of inexpressible loathing as she started to turn away.
She no more than started, for she swayed and tottered, and reached her
hand weakly out to mine. I caught her in time to save her from falling,
and helped her to a seat on the cabin. I thought she might faint
outright, but she controlled herself.

"Will you get a tourniquet, Mr. Van Weyden," Wolf Larsen called to me.

I hesitated. Her lips moved, and though they formed no words, she
commanded me with her eyes, plainly as speech, to go to the help of the
unfortunate man. "Please," she managed to whisper, and I could but obey.

By now I had developed such skill at surgery that Wolf Larsen, with a few
words of advice, left me to my task with a couple of sailors for
assistants. For his task he elected a vengeance on the shark. A heavy
swivel-hook, baited with fat salt-pork, was dropped overside; and by the
time I had compressed the severed veins and arteries, the sailors were
singing and heaving in the offending monster. I did not see it myself,
but my assistants, first one and then the other, deserted me for a few
moments to run amidships and look at what was going on. The shark, a
sixteen-footer, was hoisted up against the main-rigging. Its jaws were
pried apart to their greatest extension, and a stout stake, sharpened at
both ends, was so inserted that when the pries were removed the spread
jaws were fixed upon it. This accomplished, the hook was cut out. The
shark dropped back into the sea, helpless, yet with its full strength,
doomed--to lingering starvation--a living death less meet for it than for
the man who devised the punishment.

CHAPTER XXII

I knew what it was as she came toward me. For ten