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"Yes, I do wish it," replied I; and so I did sincerely, for I felt that it might be the saving of my life; and I had a great aversion to be torn to pieces by the sharks which followed the vessel, that being anything but an agreeable mode of going out of the world.
"I meant to write you, but hadn't the time. Steve didn't make good in that lumber business. Those men he went in with, it looks to me, were sharks. They took all his money away, every cent. You know they mortgaged the house, too. Then the company failed; he was thrown out. Steve was not sharp enough for them, I guess." "Isn't that too bad!"
By this time they'll be all as hungry as the sharks and as ravenin' too." "Oh!" exclaimed William, in accents of renewed fear, "I hope it's not them!" "Speak low, lad!" said the sailor, interrupting him, "only in whispers. If they be near, the best thing for us are to keep quiet.
"Well," says I, "there's other kinds of deferred payments, ain't there, Colonel?" "Maybe so," says he, sort of sighing. "We'll let it run as it lays; we can't help it much. Mostly a handsome girl finds somebody somewhere or somehow; or sometime " "Ain't that the God's truth, Colonel!" says I. I was just on the point of telling him all I knew. "If only she was safe from the sharks!" says he.
The waves were still running high and breaking in fiery sparkles. The silver sharks unwearyingly kept their silent vigil about the rocking buoy. Up the eastern horizon was stealing a faint pallor, harbinger of the approaching dawn. Lighter and lighter it grew. The gulls, which had been floating on the water all night, began to take wing and fill the air with their grating cries.
Had Murray not been still insensible, he would have swum away, defying the sharks till he could have got hold of something to support him, or he would have attempted to climb into the boat and had a desperate battle for his life. As it was, without sacrificing Murray, he could do neither.
The first thing in order was for all hands who were able to go down to the beach and indulge in a good long swim, shouting at the top of their lungs, and splashing incessantly, in accordance with Marshall's orders, in order to scare away any sharks that might chance to be prowling in the neighbourhood.
The one left in the boat cheered his companion, looked at the brig, and kept waving his jacket, then turned to watch the sharks; his horror may be imagined when he saw three of these terrific monsters swim past the boat, exactly in the direction of his companion; he splashed his jacket in the water to scare them away, but they seemed quite aware of the impotency of the attack, and lazily pursued their course.
It would soon have been riding the great waves on its own account, a mark for curious sea gulls and hungry sharks to inspect, had not the Irish girl that Sylvia had so much admired sprung to her feet and seized it as it swept past, making a handsome "catch on the fly."
Twice their pursuers were diverted by a tin pan, which I towed astern of the sloop, and which was mistaken for a bright fish; and while turning, in the peculiar way that sharks have when about to devour their prey, I shot them through the head. Their precarious life seemed to concern the yellowtails very little, if at all. All living beings, without doubt, are afraid of death.
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