The scene that followed was very horrible, for there was no killing the brute.

It threshed the deck with its tail, and snapped so fiercely with its tremendous jaws, that we had to keep a sharp look-out lest it should catch hold of a leg.

At last its tail was cut off, the body cut open, and all the entrails' taken out, yet even after this it continued to flap and thresh about the deck for some time, and the heart continued to contract for twenty minutes after it was taken out and pierced with a knife.
I would not have believed this had I not seen it with my own eyes.

In case some of my readers may doubt its truth, I would remind them how difficult it is to kill some of those creatures with which we are all familiar.

The common worm, for instance, may be cut into a number of small pieces, and yet each piece remains alive for some time after.
The skin of the shark is valued by the whalemen, because, when cleaned and dry, it is as good as sand-paper, and is much used in polishing the various things they make out of whales' bones and teeth.
When the last piece of blubber had been cut off our whale, the great chain that held it to the ship's side was cast off, and the now useless carcass sank like a stone, much to the sorrow of some of the smaller birds, which, having been driven away by their bigger comrades, had not fed so heartily as they wished perhaps! But what was loss to the gulls was gain to the sharks, which could follow the carcass down into the deep and devour it at their leisure.
"Now, lads," cried the mate, when the remains had vanished, "rouse up the fires, look alive, my hearties!" "Aye, aye, sir," was the ready reply, cheerfully given, as every man sprang to his appointed duty.
And so, having "cut in" our whale, we next proceeded to "try out" the oil..