close its mouth. Inevitable and
prolonged starvation was the fate thus meted out to it.

"I'll show you something, boys," Andy Fay cried, as they prepared to
handle the second shark.

The Maltese Cockney had been a most capable master of ceremonies with the
first one. More than anything else, I think, was I hardened against
these brutes by what I saw them do. In the end, the maltreated fish
thrashed about the deck entirely eviscerated. Nothing remained but the
mere flesh-shell of the creature, yet it would not die. It was amazing
the life that lingered when all the vital organs were gone. But more
amazing things were to follow.

Mulligan Jacobs, his arms a butcher's to the elbows, without as much as
"by your leave," suddenly thrust a hunk of meat into my hand. I sprang
back, startled, and dropped it to the deck, while a gleeful howl went up
from the two-score men. I was shamed, despite myself. These brutes held
me in little respect; and, after all, human nature is so strange a
compound that even a philosopher dislikes being held in disesteem by the
brutes of his own species.

I looked at what I had dropped. It was the heart of the shark, and as I
looked, there under my eyes, on the scorching deck where the pitch oozed
from the seams, the heart pulsed with life.

And I dared. I would not permit these animals to laugh at any
fastidiousness of mine. I stooped and picked up the heart, and while I
concealed and conquered my qualms I held it in my hand and felt it beat
in my hand.

At any rate, I had won a mild victory over Mulligan Jacobs; for he
abandoned me for the more delectable diversion of torturing the shark
that would not die. For several minutes it had been lying quite
motionless. Mulligan Jacobs smote it a heavy blow on the nose with the
flat of a hatchet, and as the thing galvanized into life and flung its
body about the deck the little venomous man screamed in ecstasy:

"The hooks are in it!--the hooks are in it!--and burnin' hot!"

He squirmed and writhed with fiendish delight, and again he struck it on
the nose and made it leap.

This was too much, and I beat a retreat--feigning boredom, or cessation
of interest, of course; and absently carrying the still throbbing heart
in my hand.

As I came upon the poop I saw Miss West, with her sewing basket, emerging
from the port door of the chart-house. The deck-chairs were on that
side, so I stole around on the starboard side of the chart-ho