He went below and came back with a huge '44 automatic pistol and a
handful of loaded clips.

"Anywhere from right against the body up to ten or twelve feet away,
holding for the stomach, it's astonishing, Mr. Pathurst, what you can
do with a weapon like this. Now you can't use a rifle in a mix-up.
I've been down and under, with a bunch giving me the boot, when I
turned loose with this. Talk about damage! It ranged them the full
length of their bodies. One of them'd just landed his brogans on my
face when I let'm have it. The bullet entered just above his knee,
smashed the collarbone, where it came out, and then clipped off an
ear. I guess that bullet's still going. It took more than a full-
sized man to stop it. So I say, give me a good handy gat when
something's doing."

"Ain't you afraid you'll use all your ammunition up?" he asked
anxiously half an hour later, as I continued to crack away with my
new toy.

He was quite reassured when I told him Wada had brought along fifty
thousand rounds for me.

In the midst of the shooting, two sharks came swimming around. They
were quite large, Mr. Pike said, and he estimated their length at
fifteen feet. It was Sunday morning, so that the crew, except for
working the ship, had its time to itself, and soon the carpenter,
with a rope for a fish-line and a great iron hook baited with a chunk
of salt pork the size of my head, captured first one, and then the
other, of the monsters. They were hoisted in on the main deck. And
then I saw a spectacle of the cruelty of the sea.