"The captain said: 'The beast don't seem faint, but I guess he's
thirsty, and he may fall mad, come down, and bite some of us. So,'
says he to the chief officer, 'send a hand aloft with a bucket of
fresh water for the poor brute and a pocketful of ship's bread. If we
can civilise him, so much the better.'
"But it never came to it," said the grey-haired respectable seaman.
"The creature fled to the cross-trees nimble as light when he saw a
couple of seamen mounting to the top, then descended, and ate and
drank ravenously when they had come down, which feeding murdered him,
and ruined the captain's hopes of carrying the fellow to London and
selling him at a large price to the Zooelogical Gardens. For he refused
to come on deck. He bared his teeth, and his eyes shone with the
malice of hell if the men attempted to approach him. It was impossible
to let him rest aloft throughout the night to command the ship, so to
speak; for he might sink to the deck stealthy as the shadow of a cloud
blown by the wind, and he was strong enough and big enough to tear a
sleeping man's throat out.
"'He must be shot,' said the captain, and he told the second mate to
fetch his rifle.
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