a
large rope ran through the blocks of the tackle, and the sailors hitched
the end of that rope to the end of the chain. A lot of sailors took hold
of the other end of the rope, and they stood with the rope in their
hands ready to run away with it, just as they did when they were
hoisting a yard with a sail.

Then the cook came with a big chunk of fat salt pork, and he put it on
the hook so that the point of the hook was all covered. And the mate
looked at it, to see if it was done right, and he saw that it was.

"Slack away on the line," he called to the sailors.

And they let out the rope, until the mate thought that there was enough
let out, and then he threw the hook, that was baited with the salt pork,
overboard, and it trailed out astern.

The shark saw the pork and he left his place at the stern and went over
to see about it. First he seemed to smell of it and make up his mind
that it was good to eat. Then he turned lazily over upon his side,
showing his whitish belly, and opened his mouth and swallowed the pork,
with the hook inside it, and nearly all of the chain. Little Jacob was
watching him, and he saw that the shark's mouth was not at the end of
his nose, as most fishes' mouths are, but it was quite a way back from
his snout, on the under side. And he saw his teeth quite clearly. There
were a great many of them, and they seemed to be in rows. Little Jacob
didn't have time to count the rows, but he thought that the teeth looked
very cruel. The shark's mouth was big enough to take in a man whole. And
then the mate, who still had his hand on the rope, jerked it with all
his might.

What happened then was never quite clear to little Jacob. He heard the
sailors running away with their end of the rope and shouting a chanty
and stamping their feet. And he saw the water alongside the ship being
all foamed up by an enormous monster that seemed large enough for a
whale. Then some water came up from the ocean and hit him in the face,
so that he couldn't see for a few minutes and his jacket was all wet
through. But the noise kept on.

When little Jacob could see again, the enormous monster was half out of
the water and rising slowly to the yard-arm, while he made a tremendous
commotion with his tail in the water, and a sailor was just reaching out
with an axe. The sailor struck twice with the axe, but little Jacob
didn't see where. Then the shark dropped back into the ocean with a
great splash and out of sight.