The chagrin Wolf Larsen felt from being ignored by Maud Brewster and mein the conversation at table had to express itself in some fashion, andit fell to Thomas Mugridge to be the victim. He had not mended his waysnor his shirt, though the latter he contended he had changed. Thegarment itself did not bear out the assertion, nor did the accumulationsof grease on stove and pot and pan attest a general cleanliness.

“I’ve given you warning, Cooky,” Wolf Larsen said, “and now you’ve got totake your medicine.”

Mugridge’s face turned white under its sooty veneer, and when Wolf Larsencalled for a rope and a couple of men, the miserable Cockney fled wildlyout of the galley and dodged and ducked about the deck with the grinningcrew in pursuit. Few things could have been more to their liking than togive him a tow over the side, for to the forecastle he had sent messesand concoctions of the vilest order. Conditions favoured theundertaking. The _Ghost_ was slipping through the water at no more thanthree miles an hour, and the sea was fairly calm. But Mugridge hadlittle stomach for a dip in it. Possibly he had seen men towed before.Besides, the water was frightfully cold, and his was anything but arugged constitution.

As usual, the watches below and the hunters turned out for what promisedsport. Mugridge seemed to be in rabid fear of the water, and heexhibited a nimbleness and speed we did not dream he possessed. Corneredin the right-angle of the poop and galley, he sprang like a cat to thetop of the cabin and ran aft. But his pursuers forestalling him, hedoubled back across the cabin, passed over the galley, and gained thedeck by means of the steerage-scuttle. Straight forward he raced, theboat-puller Harrison at his heels and gaining on him. But Mugridge,leaping suddenly, caught the jib-boom-lift. It happened in an instant.Holding his weight by his arms, and in mid-air doubling his body at thehips, he let fly with both feet. The oncoming Harrison caught the kicksquarely in the pit of the stomach, groaned involuntarily, and doubled upand sank backward to the deck.

Hand-clapping and roars of laughter from the hunters greeted the exploit,while Mugridge, eluding half of his pursuers at the foremast, ran aft andthrough the remainder like a runner on the football field. Straight afthe held, to the poop and along the poop to the stern. So great was hisspeed that as he curved past the corner of the cabin he slipped and fell.Nilson was standing at the wheel, and the Cockney’s hurtling body struckhis legs. Both went down together, but Mugridge alone arose. By somefreak of pressures, his frail body had snapped the strong man’s leg likea pipe-stem.

Parsons took the wheel, and the pursuit continued. Round and round thedecks they went, Mugridge sick with fear, the sailors hallooing andshouting directions to one another, and the hunters bellowingencouragement and laughter. Mugridge went down on the fore-hatch underthree men; but he emerged from the mass like an eel, bleeding at themouth, the offending shirt ripped into tatters, and sprang for themain-rigging. Up he went, clear up, beyond the ratlines, to the verymasthead.

Half-a-dozen sailors swarmed to the crosstrees after him, where theyclustered and waited while two of their number, Oofty-Oofty and Black(who was Latimer’s boat-steerer), continued up the thin steel stays,lifting their bodies higher and higher by means of their arms.

It was a perilous undertaking, for, at a height of over a hundred feetfrom the deck, holding on by their hands, they were not in the best ofpositions to protect themselves from Mugridge’s feet. And Mugridgekicked savagely, till the Kanaka, hanging on with one hand, seized theCockney’s foot with the other. Black duplicated the performance a momentlater with the other foot. Then the three writhed together in a swayingtangle, struggling, sliding, and falling into the arms of their mates onthe crosstrees.

The aërial battle was over, and Thomas Mugridge, whining and gibbering,his mouth flecked with bloody foam, was brought down to deck. WolfLarsen rove a bowline in a piece of rope and slipped it under hisshoulders. Then he was carried aft and flung into the sea.Forty,—fifty,—sixty feet of line ran out, when Wolf Larsen cried “Belay!”Oofty-Oofty took a turn on a bitt, the rope tautened, and the _Ghost_,lunging onward, jerked the cook to the surface.

It was a pitiful spectacle. Though he could not drown, and wasnine-lived in addition, he was suffering all the agonies ofhalf-drowning. The _Ghost_ was going very slowly, and when her sternlifted on a wave and she slipped forward she pulled the wretch to thesurface and gave him a moment in which to breathe; but between each liftthe stern fell, and while the bow lazily climbed the next wave the lineslacked and he sank beneath.

I had forgotten the existence of Maud Brewster, and I remembered her witha start as she stepped lightly beside me. It was her first time on decksince she had come aboard. A dead silence greeted her appearance.

“What is the cause of the merriment?” she asked.

“Ask Captain Larsen,” I answered composedly and coldly, though inwardlymy blood was boiling at the thought that she should be witness to suchbrutality.

She took my advice and was turning to put it into execution, when hereyes lighted on Oofty-Oofty, immediately before her, his body instinctwith alertness and grace as he held the turn of the rope.

“Are you fishing?” she asked him.

He made no reply. His eyes, fixed intently on the sea astern, suddenlyflashed.

“Shark ho, sir!” he cried.

“Heave in! Lively! All hands tail on!” Wolf Larsen shouted, springinghimself to the rope in advance of the quickest.

Mugridge had heard the Kanaka’s warning cry and was screaming madly. Icould see a black fin cutting the water and making for him with greaterswiftness than he was being pulled aboard. It was an even toss whetherthe shark or we would get him, and it was a matter of moments. WhenMugridge was directly beneath us, the stern descended the slope of apassing wave, thus giving the advantage to the shark. The findisappeared. The belly flashed white in swift upward rush. Almostequally swift, but not quite, was Wolf Larsen. He threw his strengthinto one tremendous jerk. The Cockney’s body left the water; so did partof the shark’s. He drew up his legs, and the man-eater seemed no morethan barely to touch one foot, sinking back into the water with a splash.But at the moment of contact Thomas Mugridge cried out. Then he came inlike a fresh-caught fish on a line, clearing the rail generously andstriking the deck in a heap, on hands and knees, and rolling over.

But a fountain of blood was gushing forth. The right foot was missing,amputated neatly at the ankle. I looked instantly to Maud Brewster. Herface was white, her eyes dilated with horror. She was gazing, not atThomas Mugridge, but at Wolf Larsen. And he was aware of it, for hesaid, with one of his short laughs:

“Man-play, Miss Brewster. Somewhat rougher, I warrant, than what youhave been used to, but still-man-play. The shark was not in thereckoning. It—”

But at this juncture, Mugridge, who had lifted his head and ascertainedthe extent of his loss, floundered over on the deck and buried his teethin Wolf Larsen’s leg. Wolf Larsen stooped, coolly, to the Cockney, andpressed with thumb and finger at the rear of the jaws and below the ears.The jaws opened with reluctance, and Wolf Larsen stepped free.

“As I was saying,” he went on, as though nothing unwonted had happened,“the shark was not in the reckoning. It was—ahem—shall we sayProvidence?”

She gave no sign that she had heard, though the expression of her eyeschanged to one of inexpressible loathing as she started to turn away.She no more than started, for she swayed and tottered, and reached herhand weakly out to mine. I caught her in time to save her from falling,and helped her to a seat on the cabin. I thought she might faintoutright, but she controlled herself.

“Will you get a tourniquet, Mr. Van Weyden,” Wolf Larsen called to me.

I hesitated. Her lips moved, and though they formed no words, shecommanded me with her eyes, plainly as speech, to go to the help of theunfortunate man. “Please,” she managed to whisper, and I could but obey.

By now I had developed such skill at surgery that Wolf Larsen, with a fewwords of advice, left me to my task with a couple of sailors forassistants. For his task he elected a vengeance on the shark. A heavyswivel-hook, baited with fat salt-pork, was dropped overside; and by thetime I had compressed the severed veins and arteries, the sailors weresinging and heaving in the offending monster. I did not see it myself,but my assistants, first one and then the other, deserted me for a fewmoments to run amidships and look at what was going on. The shark, asixteen-footer, was hoisted up against the main-rigging. Its jaws werepried apart to their greatest extension, and a stout stake, sharpened atboth ends, was so inserted that when the pries were removed the spreadjaws were fixed upon it. This accomplished, the hook was cut out. Theshark dropped back into the sea, helpless, yet with its full strength,doomed—to lingering starvation—a living death less meet for it than forthe man who devised the punishment.