Silas did not take very long to get his party--his fishing-party, as he
called it--into working order. He evidently meant business, and
expected it, too. He had seven or eight long lines, to each of which
was attached a piece of chain and an immense shark-hook. These were
baited with pieces of blubber; the men were armed with long knives and
clubs. So sure was Silas Grig of capturing a big haul of these
sea-fiends, the Greenland sharks, that he had a large fire of wood
lighted on the ice at some little distance, and over it, suspended by a
kind of shears, hung an immense cauldron. In this it was intended to
boil the livers of the sharks in order to extract the oil, which is the
most valuable part of the animal.
Until tempted by huge pieces of seal-flesh hardly a shark showed fin;
but when once their appetites were wetted then--!
I cannot, nor will I attempt to describe this battle with the sharks,
although such a fight I have been eyewitness to. Sometimes as many as
two were hauled out at once; it required the united strength of fifteen
or twenty men to land them. Then came the struggle on the ice, the
clubbing, the axing, and the death, during which many a man bit the
snow, though none were grievously wounded. Before the sun pointed to
midnight, between thirty and forty immense sharks had been captured, and
the oil from their livers weighed nearly a ton.
Poor Rory--to whom all the best of the fun and all the worst misfortunes
seemed always to fall--had a terrible adventure during the battle.
Carried away by his enthusiasm, with club in hand, he was engaging one
of the largest sharks landed. The brute bent himself suddenly, then as
suddenly straightened himself out, and away went boy Rory, like an arrow
from a cross-bow, alighting in the very centre of the pool. For a
moment every one was struck dumb with horror!
But Rory himself never lost his presence of mind. He remembered what
Silas had said about splashing and kicking to keep the sharks at bay.
Splash? I should think he did splash, and kick, too; indeed, kicking is
hardly any name for his antics. He made a wheel of himself in the
water. He seemed all arms and legs, and as for his head, it was just as
often up as down, and _vice versa_; and all the while he was issuing
orders to those on the bank--a word or two at a time, whenever his head
happened to be uppermost, so that in the midst of the splashing and
spluttering his speech ran like this:
"Stand by"--(splutter, splutter)--"you fellows"--(splash, splash)--"up
there"--(splutter) "to pull quick"--(splash)--"as soon as!"--(splutter,
splutter)--"catch the rope."--(splash, splash)--"Now lads,
now!"--(splutter, splutter, splash, splash, splutter, splutter, splash).
"Hurrah!" he cried, when he found himself on the ice. "Hurrah! boys.
Cheer, boys, cheer. Safe to bank! Hurrah! and both my legs as sound as
a bell, and never a toe missing from any single one of the two o' them.
Hurrah! Sure it's myself'll be Queen o' the May to-morrow. Hurrah!"
Yes, reader, the very next day was May-day, and on that day there are
such doings on Greenland ships as you never see in England.