As the shark is not a personage to submit patiently to such treatment, it will not be well for any one whose foot happens to be accidentally on the coil of the rope, for, when the hook is first fixed, it spins out like the log-line of a ship going twelve knots.
The suddenness of the jerk with which the poor devil is brought up, when he has reached the length of his tether, often turns him quite over on the surface of the water.

Then commence the loud cheers, taunts, and other sounds of rage and triumph, so long suppressed.

A steady pull is insufficient to carry away the line; but it sometimes happens that the violent struggles of the shark, when too speedily drawn up, snap either the rope or the hook, and so he gets off, to digest the remainder as he best can.

It is, accordingly, held the best practice to play him a little, with his mouth at the surface, till he becomes somewhat exhausted.

No sailor, therefore, ought ever to think of hauling a shark on board merely by the rope fastened to the hook; for, however impotent his struggles may generally be in the water, they are rarely unattended with risk when the rogue is drawn half-way up.