the triangular dorsal fin of a shark in close
proximity to the boat's side. Looking more closely still, I saw
another, and another, and yet another, and still others; so that, as I
looked, the boat seemed to be surrounded by sharks, hemmed in and fairly
beset by them. The water all about her was literally alive with them;
its surface all a-swirl with their eager, restless movements as they
swam to and fro and darted hither and thither, circling round the little
craft and away from her, only to turn sharply, with a whisk of the tail
that left a white foam-fleck and a miniature whirlpool on the gleaming
surface of the water, and force their way back to her side through the
jostling crowd of their companions.

"Do you see that swarm of sharks crowding round the boat, Sir Edgar?"
said I. "Take my word for it, there is a corpse--perhaps several--in
her, and I am glad that the ladies are not on deck. Lay aft here, lads,
to the main-braces, and back the mainyard. Ease your helm down, and
steer up alongside her,"--to the man at the wheel. "Stand by, one hand,
to jump down into the boat with a rope's-end and make fast."

We were now so close to the little craft that, with the small air there
was abroad, my voice, as I addressed the men, could have been distinctly
heard at a considerable distance beyond her; and there is no doubt that
it and the answering cries of the crew reached the ears of the castaway
whom we had already seen; for as, in obedience to her helm, the bows of
the barque swept slowly round towards the boat, a figure--a ghastly
figure, with scarce a semblance of humanity remaining to it--rose up in
the stern-sheets and looked at us. I shall never forget the sight, to
my dying day. It was a man, clad in the remains of a shirt, and a pair
of once blue cloth trousers that had become a dirty, colourless grey by
long exposure to the sun and frequent saturation with salt-water. The
head was bare, and thatched with a thick shock of grey, matted hair that
still retained a streak of brown in it here and there to tell what its
original colour had been; and the face was shrouded in a dense growth of
matted grey beard and whisker; the skin, where exposed, was scorched to
a deep purple red by the fierce rays of the sun. All this, however, was
as nothing compared with the gauntness and emaciation of the man. The
face, or at least that portion of it which was not hidden by the jungle
of beard, was that of a death's hea