could not restrain an exclamation.

"Brutal business!" he muttered.

"Hoh!" exclaimed Moran, scornfully, "cutting-in is too good for
him. Sailor-folk are no friends of such carrion as that."

Other lines were baited and dropped overboard, and the hands
settled themselves to the real business of the expedition. There
was no skill in the matter. The sharks bit ravenously, and soon
swarmed about the schooner in hundreds. Hardly a half minute
passed that one of the four Chinamen that were fishing did not
signal a catch, and Charlie and Jim were kept busy with spade and
gaff. By noon the deck-tubs were full. The lines were hauled in,
and the hands set the tubs in the sun to try out the oil. Under
the tropical heat the shark livers almost visibly melted away, and
by four o'clock in the afternoon the tubs were full of a thick,
yellow oil, the reek of which instantly recalled to Wilbur's mind
the rancid smell of the schooner on the day when he had first come
aboard of her. The deck-tubs were emptied into the hogsheads and
vats that stood in the waist of the "Bertha," the tubs scoured,
and the lines and bent shark-hooks overhauled. Charlie
disappeared in the galley, supper was cooked, and eaten upon deck
under the conflagration of the sunset; the lights were set, the
Chinamen foregathered in the fo'c'stle head, smoking opium, and by
eight o'clock the routine of the day was at an end.

So the time passed. In a short time Wilbur could not have said
whether the day was Wednesday or Sunday. He soon tired of the
unsportsmanlike work of killing the sluggish brutes, and turned