out.

"Now you both know, being housekeepers, that if you take a
needle and drive it into a hunk of ice you can split it. The
captain had a sail-needle with him, and so he drove it into the
iceberg right alongside of the shark and split it. Now the
minute he did it he knew that the man was right when he said he
saw the shark wink, for it flopped out of that iceberg quicker
nor a flash of lightning."

"What a happy fish he must have been!" ejaculated Dorcas,
forgetful of precedent, so great was her emotion.

"Yes," said Captain Jenkinson, "it was a happy fish enough,
but it wasn't a happy captain. You see, that shark hadn't had
anything to eat, perhaps for a thousand years, until the captain
came along with his sail-needle."

"Surely you sailormen do see strange things," now said the
widow, "and the strangest thing about them is that they are
true."

"Yes, indeed," said Dorcas, "that is the most wonderful
thing."

"You wouldn't suppose," said the Widow Ducket, glancing from
one bench of mariners to the other, "that I have a sea-story to
tell, but I have, and if you like I will tell it to you."

Captain Bird looked up a little surprised.