violent straining.

It is a fact of extreme singularity, that a similar method of capturing
turtles is practised on the coast of Mozambique at the present day, and
by a people who never could have had any communication with the
aborigines of the West Indian Islands, much less have learnt from them
this curious craft of angling with a fish!

A smaller species of the sucking-fish is found in the Mediterranean,--
the _Echeneis remora_. It was well-known to the ancient writers;
though, like most creatures gifted with any peculiarity, it was oftener
the subject of fabulous romance than real history. It was supposed to
have the power of arresting the progress of a ship, by attaching itself
to the keel and pulling in a contrary direction! A still more
ridiculous virtue was attributed to it: in the belief that, if any
criminal in dread of justice could only succeed in inducing the judge to
partake of a portion of its flesh, he would be able to obtain a long
delay before the judge could pronounce the verdict of his condemnation!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A SAIL OF SHARK-FLESH.

It wanted but a little while of sunset, when the sailor and his young
comrade had finished flensing the shark. The raft now exhibited quite
an altered appearance. Between the two upright oars several pieces of
rope had been stretched transversely, and from these hung suspended the
broad thin flitches of the shark's flesh, that at a distance might have
been mistaken for some sort of a sail. Indeed, they acted as such; for
their united discs presented a considerable breadth of surface to the
breeze, which had sprung up as the evening approached, and the raft by
this means moved through the water with considerable rapidity.

There was no effort made to steer it. The idea of reaching land was
entirely out of the question. Their only hope of salvation lay in their
being seen from a ship; and as a ship was as likely to come from one
direction as another, it mattered not to which of the thirty-two points
of the compass their raft might be drifting. Yes, it _did_ matter. So
thought Ben Brace, on reflection.

It might be of serious consequence, should the raft make way to the
westward. Somewhere in that direction--how far neither could guess--
that greater raft, with its crew of desperate ruffians,--those drunken
would-be cannibals,--must be drifting about, like themselves, at the
mercy of winds and waves: perhaps more than themselves suffering th