While she was lying in the harbor at Havana, it was very hot on board
the Royal Consort, about four o'clock in the afternoon of the 14th of
July. There was not the slightest movement in the air; the rays of the
sun seemed to burn down into the water. Silence took hold of the
animated creation. It was too hot to talk, whistle, or sing; to bark, to
crow, or to bray. Every thing crept under cover, but Sambo and Cuffee,
two fine-looking blacks, who sat sunning themselves on the quay, and
thought "him berry pleasant weather," and glistened like a new
Bristol bottle.
Sambo and Cuffee, as we have said, were sitting on the quay, enjoying
the pleasant sunshine, and making their evening repast of banana, when
they heard the plunge into the water by the side of the Royal Consort,
and presently saw Brook Watson emerging from the deep, his hands to his
eyes to free them from the brine, balancing up and down, spattering the
water from his mouth, and then throwing himself forward, hand over hand,
as if at length he really felt himself in his element.
"Oh, Massa Bacra!" roared out Sambo, as soon as he could recover from
his astonishment enough to speak, "Oh, Senor! he white man neber go to
swim! Oh, de tiburon! he berry bad bite, come de shark; he hab berry big
mouth; he eatee a Senor all up down!"
Such was the exclamation of Sambo, in the best English he had been able
to pick up, in a few years' service, in unlading the American vessels,
that came to the Havana. It was intended to apprise the bold but
inexperienced stranger, that the waters were filled with sharks, and
that it was dangerous to swim in them. The words were scarcely uttered,
and, even if they were heard, had not time to produce their effect, when
Cuffee responded to the exclamation of his sable colleague, with--
"Oh, Madre de Dios! see, see, de tiburon! de shark!--ah, San Salvador!
ah, pobre joven! matar, todo comer, he eat him all down, berry soon!"
This second cry had been drawn from the kind-hearted negro, by seeing,
at a distance in the water a smooth-shooting streak, which an
inexperienced eye would not have noticed, but which Sambo and Cuffee
knew full well. It was the wake of a shark. At a distance of a mile or
two, the shark had perceived his prey; and, with the rapidity of sound,
he had shot across the intervening space, scarcely disturbing the
surface with a ripple. Cuffee's practiced eye alone had seen a flash of
his tail, at the distance of a mile and a half; and, raising his voice
to the utmost of his strength, he had endeavored to apprise the
incautious swimmer of his danger. Brook heard the shout, and turned his
eye in the direction in which the negro pointed; and, well skilled in
all the appearances of the water, under which he could see almost as
well as in the open air, he perceived the sharp forehead of the fearful
animal rushing toward him, head on, with a rapidity; which bade defiance
to flight.
[Illustration: ESCAPE FROM A SHARK]
In a moment, the dreadful monster had shot across the entire space that
separated him from Brook; and had stopped, as if its vitality had been,
instantly arrested, at the distance of about twelve feet from our
swimmer. Brook had drawn himself up in the most pugnacious attitude
possible, and, was treading water with great activity. The shark,
probably unused to any signs of making battle, remained, for one moment,
quiet; and then, like a flash of lightning, shot sidelong off, and came
round in the rear. Brook, however, was as wide awake as his enemy.
The plashing of the oars of Sambo and Cuffee warned the sagacious
monster of gathering foes. Whirling himself over on his back, and
turning up his long, white belly, and opening his terrific jaws, set
round with a double row of broad, serrated teeth, the whole roof of his
mouth paved with horrent fangs, all standing erect, sharp, and rigid,
just permitting the blood-bright red to be seen between their roots, he
darted toward Brook. Brook's self-possession stood by him in this trying
moment. He knew very well if the animal reached him in a vital part,
that instant death was his fate; and, with a rapid movement, either of
instinct or calculation, he threw himself backward, kicking, at the same
moment, at the shark. In consequence of this movement, his foot and leg
passed into the horrid maw of the dreadful monster, and were severed in
a moment,--muscles, sinews, and bone. In the next moment, Sambo and
Cuffee were at his side; and lifted him into the boat, convulsed with
pain, and fainting with loss of blood. Brook was taken on board,
bandages and styptics were applied, and in due season the youth
recovered.
The place of his lost limb was supplied by a wooden one; and industry,
temperance, probity, and zeal, supplied the place of a regiment of legs,
when employed to prop up a lazy and dissipated frame.