A Simpleton Part 43

"Neruds!" (scratching his head.) "I harn't kept my eye on them small craft. But I BELIEVE they are selling oysters in the port of Leith."

A light breeze carried them across the equator; but soon after they got becalmed, and it was dreary work, and the ship rolled gently, but continuously, and upset Lord Tadcaster's stomach again, and quenched his manly spirit.

At last they were fortunate enough to catch the southeast trade, but it was so languid at first that the ship barely moved through the water, though they set every st.i.tch, and studding sails alow and aloft, till really she was acres of canvas.

While she was so creeping along, a man in the mizzentop noticed an enormous shark gliding steadily in her wake. This may seem a small incident, yet it ran through the ship like wildfire, and caused more or less uneasiness in three hundred stout hearts; so near is every seaman to death, and so strong the persuasion in their superst.i.tious minds, that a shark does not follow a ship pertinaciously without a prophetic instinct of calamity.

Unfortunately, the quartermaster conveyed this idea to Lord Tadcaster, and confirmed it by numerous examples to prove that there was always death at hand when a shark followed the ship.

Thereupon Tadcaster took it into his head that he was under a relapse, and the shark was waiting for his dead body: he got quite low-spirited.

Staines told Fitzroy. Fitzroy said, "Shark be hanged! I'll have him on deck in half an hour." He got leave from the captain: a hook was baited with a large piece of pork, and towed astern by a stout line, experienced old hands attending to it by turns.

The shark came up leisurely, surveyed the bait, and, I apprehend, ascertained the position of the hook. At all events, he turned quietly on his back, sucked the bait off, and retired to enjoy it.

Every officer in the ship tried him in turn, but without success; for, if they got ready for him, and, the moment he took the bait, jerked the rope hard, in that case he opened his enormous mouth so wide that the bait and hook came out clear. But, sooner or later, he always got the bait, and left his captors the hook.

This went on for days, and his huge dorsal fin always in the ship's wake.

Then Tadcaster, who had watched these experiments with hope, lost his spirit and appet.i.te.

Staines reasoned with him, but in vain. Somebody was to die; and, although there were three hundred and more in the ship, he must be the one. At last he actually made his will, and threw himself into Staines's arms, and gave him messages to his mother and Lady Cicely; and ended by frightening himself into a fit.

This roused Staines's pity, and also put him on his mettle. What, science be beaten by a shark!

He pondered the matter with all his might; and at last an idea came to him.

He asked the captain's permission to try his hand. This was accorded immediately, and the ship's stores placed at his disposal very politely, but with a sly, comical grin.

Dr. Staines got from the carpenter some sheets of zinc and spare copper, and some flannel: these he cut into three-inch squares, and soaked the flannel in acidulated water. He then procured a quant.i.ty of bell-wire, the greater part of which he insulated by wrapping it round with hot gutta percha. So eager was he, that he did not turn in all night.

In the morning he prepared what he called an electric fuse--he filled a soda-water bottle with gunpowder, attaching some cork to make it buoyant, put in the fuse and bung, made it water-tight, connected and insulated his main wires--enveloped the bottle in pork--tied a line to it, and let the bottle overboard.

The captain and officers shook their heads mysteriously. The tars peeped and grinned from every rope to see a doctor try and catch a shark with a soda-water bottle and no hook; but somehow the doctor seemed to know what he was about, so they hovered round, and awaited the result, mystified, but curious, and showing their teeth from ear to ear.

"The only thing I fear," said Staines, "is that, the moment he takes the bait, he will cut the wire before I can complete the circuit, and fire the fuse."

Nevertheless, there was another objection to the success of the experiment. The shark had disappeared.

"Well," said the captain, "at all events, you have frightened him away."

"No," said little Tadcaster, white as a ghost; "he is only under water, I know; waiting--waiting."

"There he is," cried one in the ratlines.

There was a rush to the taffrail--great excitement.

"Keep clear of me," said Staines quietly but firmly. "It can only be done at the moment before he cuts the wire."

The old shark swam slowly round the bait.

He saw it was something new.

He swam round and round it.

"He won't take it," said one.

"He suspects something."

"Oh, yes, he will take the meat somehow, and leave the pepper. Sly old fox!"

"He has eaten many a poor Jack, that one."

The shark turned slowly on his back, and, instead of grabbing at the bait, seemed to draw it by gentle suction into that capacious throat, ready to blow it out in a moment if it was not all right.

The moment the bait was drawn out of sight, Staines completed the circuit; the bottle exploded with a fury that surprised him and everybody who saw it; a ton of water flew into the air, and came down in spray, and a gory carca.s.s floated, belly uppermost, visibly staining the blue water.

There was a roar of amazement and applause.

The carca.s.s was towed alongside, at Tadcaster's urgent request, and then the power of the explosion was seen. Confined, first by the bottle, then by the meat, then by the fish, and lastly by the water, it had exploded with tenfold power, had blown the brute's head into a million atoms, and had even torn a great furrow in its carca.s.s, exposing three feet of the backbone.

Taddy gloated on his enemy, and began to pick up again from that hour.

The wind improved, and, as usual in that lat.i.tude, scarcely varied a point. They had a pleasant time,--private theatricals and other amus.e.m.e.nts till they got to lat.i.tude 26 deg. S. and longitude 27 deg. W.

Then the trade wind deserted them. Light and variable winds succeeded.

The master complained of the chronometers, and the captain thought it his duty to verify or correct them; and so shaped his course for the island of Tristan d'Acunha, then lying a little way out of his course. I ought, perhaps, to explain to the general reader that the exact position of this island being long ago established and recorded, it was an infallible guide to go by in verifying a ship's chronometers.

Next day the gla.s.s fell all day, and the captain said he should double-reef topsails at nightfall, for something was brewing.

The weather, however, was fine, and the ship was sailing very fast, when, about half an hour before sunset, the mast-head man hailed that there was a bulk of timber in sight, broad on the weather-bow.

The signalman was sent up, and said it looked like a raft.

The captain, who was on deck, levelled his gla.s.s at it, and made it out a raft, with a sort of rail to it, and the stump of a mast.

He ordered the officer of the watch to keep the ship as close to the wind as possible. He should like to examine it if he could.

The master represented, respectfully, that it would be unadvisable to beat to windward for that. "I have no faith in our chronometers, sir, and it is important to make the island before dark; fogs rise here so suddenly."

"Very well, Mr. Bolt; then I suppose we must let the raft go."

"MAN ON THE RAFT TO WINDWARD!" hailed the signalman.

This electrified the ship. The captain ran up the mizzen rigging, and scanned the raft, now nearly abeam.

"It IS a man!" he cried, and was about to alter the ship's course when, at that moment, the signalman hailed again,--

"IT IS A CORPSE."