ran_ must have come very near where the swimmer was struggling;
where as, on his dropping the oar, she once more luffed round, and began
to make way in the opposite direction.

Little William, however, did not observe this sinister circumstance; or
if he did, it was for the moment driven out of his mind by one still
more sinister, that just then came under his observation.

Only for a few seconds had he remained watching the negro, and
wondering, with unpleasant thoughts, why the latter before leaping
overboard had half drawn the knife from his belt and then resheathed it.
Something like a suspicion passed through the mind of the youth. What
could the negro want with a knife, if his object was to give help to the
swimmer? Could a fiendish conception have occurred to the Coromantee,
to lessen the number of those who might require food and water?

It is true the suspicion had barely shaped itself in the brain of the
boy. Still, it had shaped itself, to be succeeded by a feeling of
remorse for the wrong which he had done to Snowball in entertaining it.
Almost on the instant did he become conscious of this wrong, by an
object coming under his eyes and which at once accounted for the conduct
of the Coromantee, that had seemed strange. Snowball was swimming
towards Ben Brace,--not to destroy,--but with the intention of saving
him.

From what? Was the sailor really in danger of sinking, so as to stand
in need of support both for himself and his burden?

Little William did not put such an interrogatory. All his conjectures
were ended. The peril threatening his patron,--and little Lalee as
well,--was plainly outlined before his eyes, in all its frightful
reality. That flattish, dark disc, with lunetted edge, rising erect
above the surface, and cutting keenly through the rippling water, was an
object not to be mistaken for any moving thing met with amid the ocean,
save the dorsal fin of a shark, and William knew at a glance that such
in reality it was.

He saw, moreover, it was the same he and little Lalee had so late been
contemplating in security,--the dreaded zygaena: for through the
translucent water he could distinguish its hammer-shaped head, and lurid
eyes gleaming out from their protuberant sockets,--hideous to behold!

The boy now became spectator,--sole spectator,--of a scene of thrilling,
even terrible interest. The characters in the drama were Snowball, the
zygaena, and Ben Brace with his burden.

Ju