as I looked, there under my eyes, on the scorching deck where the
pitch oozed from the seams, the heart pulsed with life.

And I dared. I would not permit these animals to laugh at any
fastidiousness of mine. I stooped and picked up the heart, and while
I concealed and conquered my qualms I held it in my hand and felt it
beat in my hand.

At any rate, I had won a mild victory over Mulligan Jacobs; for he
abandoned me for the more delectable diversion of torturing the shark
that would not die. For several minutes it had been lying quite
motionless. Mulligan Jacobs smote it a heavy blow on the nose with
the flat of a hatchet, and as the thing galvanized into life and
flung its body about the deck the little venomous man screamed in
ecstasy:

"The hooks are in it!--the hooks are in it!--and burnin' hot!"

He squirmed and writhed with fiendish delight, and again he struck it
on the nose and made it leap.

This was too much, and I beat a retreat--feigning boredom, or
cessation of interest, of course; and absently carrying the still
throbbing heart in my hand.

As I came upon the poop I saw Miss West, with her sewing basket,
emerging from the port door of the chart-house. The deck-chairs were
on that side, so I stole around on the starboard side of the chart-
house in order to fling overboard unobserved the dreadful thing I
carried. But, drying on the surface in the tropic heat and still