Jack at Sea Part 53

"Yes; it was horrible. But are they quite gone?"

"We can't make out any signs of them from the mast-head; but as they know we're here, they may set over their fright and come back."

"Why, we're steaming," said Jack in surprise.

"We are, my lad. This is just the time when steam is useful; it helps me to run back gently to our old moorings; and as soon as Sir John comes up, I'm going to propose that we take a run right round the island from outside the reef, so as to make sure that the blacks have no village here."

Directly after that the yacht hooked up the tub which buoyed the cable, and they swung in their old moorings.

"Now then," said the captain, "I'm going to have a look at that canoe; will you come with me?"

"Of course," cried Jack.

"Get your gun and cartridges then. It will not do to go unarmed anywhere now we have found that there is an enemy."

Jack fetched his double gun, wondering whether he would ever have occasion to use it, and on returning to the deck he found the captain examining the stem of the cutter, now hanging from the davits.

"Look here, Squire Meadows," he said, "this is a specimen of the value of good things. Now if this had been a common, cheaply-made boat her planks would have been started, and a lot of carpenter's work wanted before she would have been any use. As it is, she will want a bit of varnish there, and a few taps of the hammer where the copper covers the front of the keel. You came a pretty good crash into that canoe, I suppose?"

"I was not in the boat; but they seemed to."

"I suppose so. Well, come and jump in."

He led the way to where Lenny was seated in the dinghy, and they stepped down, and were rowed by the man toward the submerged canoe.

"Keep a sharp look-out along the edge of the trees," said the captain quietly. "I don't think any one can have landed; but there is no harm in being safe."

Jack began sweeping the green edge just beyond the golden sands, but his attention was taken off by the captain as they approached the canoe.

"Look at the brutes," he said, pointing. "Half-a-dozen of them under her."

Jack looked at him in horror.

"There, you can see their dusky bodies against the sand."

"I thought they all escaped by swimming and hanging on to her," he said a little huskily.

"Escaped by swimming?" replied the captain wonderingly. "What are you talking about?"

"The savages."

"Oh!" cried the captain, bursting into a hearty laugh, to the boy's great disgust, "I see. Well, I meant the savages too, but a different sort. Look down there."

"I don't care to!" cried Jack hoa.r.s.ely. "Perhaps it is cowardly; but I don't want to satisfy a morbid curiosity by gazing down at the dead bodies of my fellow-creatures."

"Rather fine language, young gentleman," said the captain, patting him on the shoulder; "but I like the sentiment all the same, and I should not have drawn your attention to them if it had been what you thought.

The bodies I mean are those of half-a-dozen sharks. There they are."

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Captain Bradleigh!" cried Jack. "How stupid of me!"

"Nothing to ask pardon for, sir," said the captain, smiling. "See them?--Hold hard, Lenny."

"Yes; quite plainly now. Six. How shadowy they look! Not very big though, are they?"

"Plenty big enough to tear a man to pieces. Why, that one's a good nine feet long, and there isn't one under six, I should say. But isn't it strange how they seem to smell out danger? You know how they'll follow a ship? Well, these brutes must have been following the canoes, expecting to get something, and this one being wrecked, they're waiting by it as if they were ready for a grab at some poor wretch."

"How horrible!"

"Ay, my lad, it is. I'm as bad as any of the sailors. Of course it's the brutes' nature; but I feel a thorough satisfaction when one is caught and killed; and if it was not that I don't want to have any firing just now, I'd go back and make some kind of a dummy with a ship's fender and some old clothes, and we'd pitch it overboard. It would tempt them to come at it, and we'd put in ball-cartridge and try a bit of shooting, and finish off this lot."

"I wish you would," cried Jack eagerly.

"Well, we'll see after breakfast."

Jack took up his gun and c.o.c.ked it as he gazed down at the long, lithe creatures lying perfectly motionless beneath the injured canoe.

"No, no; don't fire!"

"Not unless I'm obliged," said Jack, who looked excited. "This boat is so small and slight, I thought that perhaps they might attack us."

"Oh no; they will not do that. Scull round her bows, Lenny; I want to see where the cutter struck her."

The man obeyed, and there about twenty feet from the prow, seen perfectly through the clear water, was a large gap where the cutter had acted up to her name, and gone right through the side, completely disabling the barbarian craft.

"Ah, shows the strength of our boats," said the captain. "Fine canoe, too. Perhaps they'll come after her, and tow her away to mend her.

Takes them too long to make such a canoe as that to give her up easily.

Humph! a good sixty feet long. That must have been a fine tree before it was cut down."

"Was that made out of one tree?"

"Yes; all the bottom part. They cut one down, and hollow it out by burning and chopping, and then they raise the sides, and bows, and stern by pegging and lashing on planks. There, you can see the rattan cane they lash the planks on with. Look how the holes are plugged and filled up with gum. It's rough, but good, strong work; and it's wonderful what voyages they make from island to island in a canoe like that."

"Look!" said Jack excitedly, "there's one of the sharks rising."

"Yes," said the captain coolly. "Give me the little boat-hook, my lad."

Lenny smiled grimly as he pa.s.sed the little pole from where it lay.

"Like to have a prod at him?" said the captain.

Jack hesitated a moment, and then said, "Yes."

The captain nodded approval, but did not hand the boat-hook.

"Better let me," he said. "You shall have a turn with a lance, first chance. Look, here he comes. Wonderful how these things can move through the water. You can't see him moving a fin, but he is rising slowly, and when he likes he can dart through like an arrow. One lash with the powerful tail sends the brutes a long way. I believe he is rising now from some management of the air-bladder. Swells himself out and makes himself lighter."

Jack made no reply, for he was half fascinated, as he gazed down into the water, by the way in which, after pa.s.sing under the canoe, the shark gradually and almost imperceptibly rose, with its head toward them, the sharply-rounded snout projecting over and completely hiding the savagely-armed jaws.