e_ was that he did not perceive the
boat, which he had not seen lowered; and, besides this, it was every now
and then hidden from view as it sank down between the ridges of the
rollers, while, in addition, his face was turned in the opposite
direction to that in which the little craft was approaching him.

The captain was in a perfect agony.

"Shark! shark!" he again screamed, more than cried, out. "For heaven's
sake, strike out, man, or you're lost!"

Then, all at once, Jackson appeared to grasp the meaning of the warning;
and, looking behind him hurriedly, he caught sight of the cruel monster
that was swimming after him, stroke by stroke and ready to sheer up
alongside when it thought the proper opportunity had arrived for seizing
its prey.

It must have given the poor fellow an awful sensation!

He could not but have realised the fearful doom that possibly awaited
him; for we could, in a moment, even at that distance, notice his face
change--a terror-stricken look coming over it in place of its previously
buoyant expression. The brave fellow, however, uttered never a word,
but only continued swimming on towards us in grim desperation.

"Pull, Marline, for God's sake, pull!" shouted out Captain Miles to the
mate and those with him in the boat; but, although the men made the
water churn up over the bows of the gig in their mad haste to urge it
forwards, the relentless shark was quicker in its movements and crept up
closer to poor Jackson.

It was close in his rear, while the boat was yet thirty or forty yards
away; and then, like a flash of lightning, we saw the monster's gleaming
white stomach as it threw itself over on its back and opened its wide
maw lined with rows of serrated teeth.

"My God!" 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 t