Twice he missed like this, and it took some time before he could get another chance; but at last it came, and as, full of excitement, the occupants of the boat bent over the side, there was a quick lunge, and a tremendous splashing as the captain ran nimbly up the sands, dragging after him the long bluish fish, which was immediately attacked as it lay on the sands lashing about with its tail, and throwing its head from side to side till the knife-thrusts it received, and the violent blows across the back of the head, disabled it, and its course was at an end. "I only wonder, sir, as she didn't bite her way out of the net," said the captain of the seine, as Mr Temple and his sons landed to have a look at the take: "It is a shark, then?" said Mr Temple. "Ay, sir, she be a blue shark, sure enough. Look at her teeth! Mischievous brutes; they follow the drift-nets, and bite the herring and pilchard out of 'em. I've known 'em swallow a conger when it's been hooked, and I've seen small ones caught that way, but they generally bite through the line and go off. Look, sir, there's teeth--sharp as lancets." As he spoke he thrust the end of the boat-hook between the shark's jaws, and wrenched them open for the party to see. "I say, though, Mr Pollard," said Dick. "Cap'n Pollard, if you wouldn't mind, young gentleman," said the great bluff Cornishman, smiling at Dick. "Captain Pollard," said Dick, "do these sharks ever attack a man or a boy when bathing?" "Never heerd o' such a thing," said the captain; "but the mischief they do to a fisherman's craft, sir, is something terrible--lines, nets, fish--they destroy everything. Like to take the shark home with you, sir?" "No, thank you!" cried Mr Temple, shaking his head; "no sharks, thank you!" "You're welcome, if you like, sir," said the captain; "but if you don't care for her, I'll send her to London to my salesman, and he'll show her as a cur'osity." "Eight feet long exactly," said Mr Temple, who had been measuring it. "Be she, though?" said the captain, "well, it be eight foot o' mischief well put out of the way, and that's a good day's work." They stopped looking at the long thin shark for some minutes, Dick thinking that it was not so very much unlike a dog-fish after all, and then they turned back to the net, which was being rapidly emptied, the mackerel that were left being quickly counted out into baskets and tied down, those obtained now forming what Dick would have considered quite a good take.