d as though some malicious
influence was at work to prevent my escape, as though fate was against
me! Yet, after all, it was not fate that was to blame, but my own
dullness in not perceiving my chance and availing myself of it the
moment that it presented itself. If instead of vacillating, as I had
done, I had promptly taken the plunge, I should have accomplished my
short swim before the sharks had made their appearance and cut off my
retreat. When I first sighted the detached fragments of wreckage the
distance which separated them from me was trifling; now it was at least
double as far, and was increasing rapidly; soon it would pass out of
sight altogether and my last hope would be gone.

I stood watching those two sharks as they swam lazily to and fro between
me and the fast receding wreckage. It really looked as though they were
aware of my presence, had divined my purpose, and were determined to
frustrate it. For what seemed at least half-an-hour, but was probably
not more than ten minutes, the voracious fish tacked this way and that,
approaching me a little nearer every tack, until at length they were so
close that I could have leapt upon the back of the nearer one, so close
that I could distinctly see their entire bulk; and the sight turned my
blood cold, for they were veritable monsters, one of them being fully
twenty feet long from snout to the tip of the unevenly fluked tail,
while the other was perhaps three feet shorter. And there was now no
room to doubt that they were fully aware of my existence, for every time
that they passed me their great goggle eyes glared at me hungrily with
an expression which seemed to say--"All right, my boy; you may hold on
there as long as you like: but we will wait for you, and get you at
last."

I began to cast about in my mind for some means by which I might drive
the creatures away. I had a knife with a long, strong, sharp blade,
attached to my neck by a lanyard, and I looked about me to see if there
was anything available which I could convert into a spear by lashing the
knife to it; but there was nothing; and I was still puzzling my brain
when suddenly the two fish paused in their patrol, swung quickly round,
and the next instant made sail dead to windward, as though they had just
caught the scent of some especially tempting morsel.

Now, if ever, was my time, I told myself; the brutes had undoubtedly
left me, there were no other sharks in sight, and every second w