And then, as I put up helm, as if hauled
down on a line, the trunk and head disappeared from view and a bloody
smear came up, oozing and spreading. Jarvis called out that he had
seen a shark's fin.
"I did not see it, being occupied in rounding up the boat to recover
the body: doing this, too, with my left hand, in no small pain.
For Grimalson's stroke with the gaff had lacerated my right fore-arm,
tearing away a strip of my rolled-up shirt-sleeve.
"And then. . . . My God, Roddy!--Farrell, who had roused himself up
at the scrimmage, had his mouth fastened on my arm, mad with thirst,
sucking the blood! Oh, you have to go through these things to
understand! . . . And I said I wouldn't tell. . . . I beat at him;
but it was Santa who pushed him off.
"Webster had sunk, sobbing, with his face on his hands that gripped
the gunwale. We were all mad. I held out my bleeding fore-arm to
Santa, who was tearing a bandage for it.
"'Your husband has drunk,' I said.
"'Ah, pity!' said she, softly, taking the first deft turn of the
bandage. 'Must you, too, be a beast?'
"Jarvis, meanwhile, like a man dulled to all tragedy had gone to the
boat's side and was hauling in Grimalson's futile line.
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