kle it is. The whole deck's charkle, and so's the
bulwarks, and the chunk end o' the bowsprit?"

"And the masts, Billy?" said Small.

"Dessay they are, but they're floated away. The whole ship's a reg'lar
cellar."

Billy then got on about the length of time they stopped, about the
wonderful nature of the crater bay, and the depth of the water.

"Why, when you was rowing acrost it you could feel as it must go right
through to the other side, it was so deep. No water couldn't be so
black as that was without being hundreds o' knots deep."

"I say, Billy, ain't you getting hundreds o' knots into your yarn?" said
Small.

"Not I, bosun. It's all fact; you ask my mate here if it aren't. I
suppose you don't want to know about that there shark?" he continued, as
he picked a bone in a very ungentlemanly manner, taking his hands to it,
and once leaving it stuck across his mouth like a horse's bit, while he
altered his position.

"Oh yes, we do! Let's hear about the shark," cried all present.

"Well," said Billy, "there aren't much to tell, only that as we was
going along I says to the skipper, I says, `There's a whacking great
shark along yonder.'

"`Ay, Billy,' he says, `that's a thumper, and no mistake.'

"There he was, going round and round us with his back fin above water,
just like a steam launch, and before you knew where you was he puts his
head out o' water, gives a squint at us to see which was the best
looking to swaller--"

"And he chose you, Billy, because you've got such short legs as wouldn't
kick about much when you was down."

"Wrong, Mr Small, sir," said Billy, handing the remains of his half of
the bird to the dog and cleaning his knife by sticking it in and out of
the sand; "wrong, sir. I think he meant Jack here; but the monkey
squeals out and hops under my legs in no time, and Mr Jack-shark alters
his mind and goes for Muster Gregory, shoots out o' the water, he does,
and he was aboard of us afore we knowed where we was."

"Get out!" said Small.

"It's a fact, Mr Small, sir; ask my mate if it aren't. He didn't stop
aboard cause he come crostwise over the bows; but there he was aboard
for a moment afore he slips off, and when he comes round to try it again
the skipper and Mr Greg lets him have it out o' their guns, and scared
him off; and, bless your 'arts, I have seen a few rum games in the sea,
but the way his mates chawed him up arterwards beat everything. Why,
the lagoon, as they