The water actually boiled with sharks, feasting and fighting. There was a multitude of them, big fellows, from six to twelve feet long, and they took bites about the size of a football right out of the whale’s side. It was hard to see how they could do it, with their projecting snouts, and I did not make it out very well with all my watching. A shark would glide directly at the whale, about a foot or two under the surface, there would be the flash of whitish belly as he turned over, and he would glide on under, or turn without stopping; but there was always the neat, round hole where he had scooped out his mouthful. Two of the biggest sharks repeatedly threw themselves up on the carcass, from which, of course, they slipped off immediately; but they always left smooth, round holes behind them. “And they take a good quart of oil at every mouthful,” said Peter’s voice at my elbow. I had been so intent on the sharks that I had not heard him come. “Those big fellows take more. Three of their bites would make a gallon of oil.” I seized the chance to get from Peter the story of the capture of the whale. It was a short story in the telling, possibly because he saw that I was as much interested in the sharks as I was in the story; but I think Peter would have made no long story of it in any case. “ ’T is soon told,” he said. “He ran for four or five hours, twelve knots or more at first, then ten, and then less, but faster than the ship sails. A nice kind of a sleigh-ride, Timmie. We had a good deal of trouble heaving close to lance him, for he was cunning and knowing, and managed to keep out of the way. He turned fin out about {72} sunset, and we burned flares now and then while we pulled to windward. Raised the ship about four bells, but the sea was so high we had trouble getting the fluke-chain fast, and it was nearly midnight before we had the boat on the davits. Look at that, now! Would n’t it surprise you the life there is in a shark?” He pointed to a shark whose bowels were protruding from a cut in its belly. The shark was so intent on feasting while the feast was good that he paid no attention to an injury which, one would think, was disabling. The intestine gradually came out, and trailed in a long, wriggling line as he swam. Other sharks attacked and tore at it. For the sharks were not having it all their own way. The cutting-stage had been rigged and lowered, and George Hall and Miller, the boatsteerers for the second mate and the fifth mate, were stationed on it with sharp spades, and were doing what damage to the sharks they could. A shark has as many lives as a cat. An enormous shark came at great speed, and threw himself fairly upon the carcass of the whale. “Pin him through the nose!” Peter shouted. “Pin him through the nose!”