The White Squall Part 12

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed Captain Miles, turning away his head, "they are too late!"

A sympathetic groan of anguish ran through the ship, and I could not help bursting into tears as I jumped down from the gangway, not daring to watch the end of the tragedy; but I thought I heard one agonised scream from the poor fellow, which must have escaped his lips just as the cruel teeth of the shark gripped its unresisting victim, telling that all was over.

After this, for one single moment, there was a still silence as of death around me, the men appearing to hold their very breaths in excess of emotion.

CHAPTER NINE.

A WATER-SPOUT.

Then, the next instant, a wild frenzied roar of joy echoed fore and aft the ship, making the _Josephine_ quiver almost down to her bottom timbers.

"Hooray!"

I could scarcely believe my ears; but, as I looked up in surprise and wonder I caught sight of Jake's ebony face all aglow with delight, his eyes rolling about like a vessel in a heavy seaway and his mouth expanded from ear to ear. He was evidently about to indulge in one of his usual huge guffaws when especially highly pleased and unable to contain himself, as he evidently was now.

"Golly, dat splendiferous!" he cried out in ecstasy. "Um beat c.o.c.k- fightin' nohow!"

"Bravo, well done!" I heard Captain Miles's voice exclaim also at the same time, with a joyous heartiness utterly indescribable.

"Why, what has happened, Jake?" I asked, quite puzzled.

"Wat happen', eh, Ma.s.s' Tom? I tell um sharp! De sailor man lick de shark arter all! Him dibe under de fis; as um go to grab him; an' den, dey catch de nasty debbil one big crack wid um boat-hook, an' pull Ma.s.s'

Jackson into der boat. Golly, I'se so berry glad, Ma.s.s' Tom! I'se a'most cry wid joy, for true."

And then, not content with this expression of his feelings, the sympathetic darkey, sliding down from the rigging where he had been perched, looking on at the terribly exciting scene taking place a moment before in the water, tumbled himself over on the deck in paroxysms of merriment, perfectly unable to restrain himself and keep still.

When I now looked over the side of the ship, which by this time was hove-to, the gig, with Jackson seated in the stern-sheets by Mr Marline, was close under the port quarter, and the rescued swimmer with those who had saved him in the nick of time were just preparing to come on board.

Presently, Jackson and the mate mounted the side-ladder amidst a perfect ovation from the crew, all hands cheering like mad and pressing forwards to shake the fist of him whom they had never expected to see again.

After this the gig was veered astern and hoisted up once more to the davits, and the _Josephine_, bearing round and filling her sails, again resumed her north-east course on the starboard tack. The job of making the port anchor snug inboard was completed later on, when the men had sobered down somewhat from the excitement which had reigned through the ship from the moment Jackson had first fallen overboard--it having been an awfully anxious time throughout his peril by drowning, his hairbreadth escape from the shark, and his ultimate rescue.

Later on, Moggridge told me how the poor fellow escaped from the very jaws of death.

Jackson, he said, when he became aware of being pursued by the bloodthirsty monster, instead of losing his presence of mind, as most men would have done under the circ.u.mstances, remained perfectly calm and collected, having once before had an encounter with a shark in his native element.

He swam on steadily towards the ship, apparently unmindful of his enemy; but, he carefully kept his weather eye opened, and when he saw the brute going to turn on his back in order to make a s.n.a.t.c.h at him, he at once dived under the shark's body, thus circ.u.mventing his attack. Before the monster could recover itself and make a fresh onslaught, Moggridge said, the chief mate caught it a pretty tidy whack over the head with a boat- hook, while Jackson was hauled into the gig at the same time by the other men.

It was a wonderful escape, however, and nothing else was talked of on board for days after.

Strange to say, too, the shark, as if determined not to be easily balked of its prey, followed the ship steadily; and this fact, of course, kept the incident fresh in our minds, even if we had been at all inclined to forget it, the hideous creature's bottle-like fin ever perceptible in our wake being a constant reminder!

"He's bound to hab somebody for suah," said the captain's mulatto steward Harry, who by the way was the person who had given out that agonised shriek which I had fancied to be poor Jackson's death knell.

"Shark nebber follow ship for nuffin'!"

"No," observed Captain Miles grimly; "this beggar sha'n't at all events, if I know it!" and he paced up and down the p.o.o.p, as if revolving the matter in his mind.

This was the third day after the affair had happened, and the captain was quite incensed at the shark's pertinacity; for, morning, noon, and night, whenever we logged over the side, there could be seen the sea- pirate's long sinewy body, floating under our stern and always keeping pace with the ship whether she was going fast or slow--although, as we had little or no wind, the latter was generally the case.

"I fancy, Mr Marline," said the captain, soon after replying to Harry's rather frightened observation, the mulatto being very timid and of a cowardly nature, as the fact of his fainting when the cow invaded the cabin would readily tell--"I say, Mr Marline, I think it's time for us to give that joker down there a lesson, eh?"

"Perhaps you'll find him too artful to take a hook, cap'en," answered the mate. "He seems to me an 'old sojer,' from the look of him and the regularity of his movements. Just see him now looking up, as if listening to what we were saying!"

"Well, we'll try him anyway," said Captain Miles, telling Moggridge to bring the shark hook aft, as he wished to attempt the capture of our unwelcome attendant.

"Aye, aye, sir," replied the boatswain, going forwards and presently returning with a large steel hook, much about the same size as those they use in butchers' shops for hanging meat on. A piece of chain was attached to this by a swivel instead of rope or a line, which, although good enough for other fish, the saw-like teeth of the monster of the deep would quickly have bitten through.

"Is the tackle all sound?" asked the captain.

"Aye, aye, sir; sound enough to catch a whale," responded Moggridge, proceeding to bait the hook with a four-pound piece of salt pork which completely concealed the barbs; and then, a stout half-inch rope having been fastened on to the end of the chain, the whole apparatus was thrown overboard close to where the shark was patrolling the water under our stern.

He sheered off a bit on hearing the splash; but afterwards soon swam up to where the baited hook was towing in our wake, smelling at it cautiously as if to see whether it was advisable for him to bolt the savoury morsel or not. Then, with a disdainful swish of his screw-like tail, he turned round in the water and resumed his station further astern, as if he saw through our attempt to entrap him, and despised it.

"I thought so," said Mr Marline. "He's too old a bird to be caught by chaff. You won't hook him in a blue moon!"

"Don't you be too c.o.c.ksure of that," retorted Captain Miles. "Sharks, I have noticed, frequently resemble cats in the way they will nibble at a bait, and pretend they don't care about it, when all the while they are dying to gobble it down--just in the same manner as you'll observe p.u.s.s.y, if you offer her a nice bit of meat, will sniff and turn away her head as if rejecting the morsel with disdain, affecting to make you believe it beneath her notice, only the next moment to abstract it slily from your hand, glad enough to get it! You'll see presently, Mr Marline, that our friend there will go at the pork again, I'll bet anything."

"All right, cap'en," replied Mr Marline. "I only hope, I'm sure, that your antic.i.p.ation will prove correct;" but, from the sly quizzical smile on his face and the dry way in which he spoke, I don't think the mate believed in our hooking the ugly brute, all the same.

After a little time, I noticed two small fishes coming up towards the bait and poking their pointed noses into it as if taking observations, and I called Captain Miles's attention to them.

"Oh, that's a good sign," said he. "Those are pilot-fish, which always accompany his majesty Mr Shark in the way of _aides-de-camp_, as you call those smart gentlemen in gay uniforms who are usually seen prancing about the general at a review of troops ash.o.r.e. Whenever you see the little chaps, the shark himself is never far off, for they precede him as his scouts to warn him of danger as well as tell him if there's anything worth grabbing in the offing. If it wasn't for them I believe he'd fare rather badly, as his own sight is bad--fortunately for poor fellows that fall in the water in the way Jackson did t'other day!"

"But, captain," I remarked, "they must be very bad guides if they do not tell the shark about the hook."

"Aye," he replied; "something like 'the blind leading the blind,' eh?

Still, you know Moggridge has taken care that the bait carefully conceals the snare within, and the pilot-fish are none the wiser. See them now!"

As I watched, I noticed first one and then the other of the little fish smell at the piece of pork, making their observations apparently, after which they swam back to the side of the shark, where they remained for a moment on either side of his snout, as if they were making their report upon the tempting object and giving their master all particulars.

Then the shark, with a fluke of his tail, also advanced closer to the bait, which just then, by a twist of the rope attached to it, the boatswain jerked away.

This was enough for Master Shark, who, thinking he was going to lose the coveted morsel, at once sheered alongside of it, turning over on his back and opening his terrible-looking cavern of a mouth in the same way I had seen him do when he tried to catch poor Jackson. The recollection of that made me shudder all over!

The next moment the monster had bolted both bait and hook, as well as a couple of feet of the chain; but when he turned to sheer off again he was "brought up with a round turn," as sailors say, by the rope tightening suddenly, the jerk almost making him turn a somersault in the water.

He was not altogether captured yet, however, and his struggles to get free were tremendous. Really, his jaws must have been pretty tough to have not given way under the furious flings and writhings he made to release himself; for the strong half-inch manilla rope that held him tethered was stretched like a fiddle-string, its strands all quivering with the strain upon it.

First to one side of the ship and then to the other the brute bounded in turns, making the sea boil around him like a whirlpool, until finally, after half an hour's fight of it, he gave in and lay quiet, although not dead yet by any means.

As soon as the shark began to flounder about, I noticed that the pilot- fish went away, leaving him alone in his extremity; and on my mentioning this to Mr Marline he took the opportunity of pointing a moral for my especial benefit.

"It's just the way in the world, Master Tom," said he. "Foolish companions lead many a young fellow into a sc.r.a.pe; but as soon as they see him in the mess into which they were the means of inveigling him, they scuttle off, abandoning him to his fate and probably laughing at his troubles too."

"Aye," put in Captain Miles, wishing also to improve the occasion; "and if that shark had not been so madly impetuous in rushing at the hook he would never have been caught; in the same way as somebody told me of a certain young gentleman, who, not looking before he leaped, as the proverb says, and only thinking of the end he had in view, galloped down a hill and came to grief--getting a tumble which laid him up for weeks!"

"Oh, Captain Miles," said I, "you don't think I'm a shark, do you?"