A PURPLE rippling line upon the water had for some time been coming down
upon them with great rapidity; but, bent on bloody work, they had not
observed it. The boat heeled over under the sudden gust; but the ruffian
had already lost his footing under Hazel's blow, and, the boom striking
him almost at the same moment, he went clean over the gunwale into the
sea; he struck it with his knife first.
All their lives were now gone if Cooper, who had already recovered his
feet, had not immediately cut the sheet with his knife; there was no time
to slack it; and, even as it was, the lower part of the sail was
drenched, and the boat full of water. "Ship the helm!" he roared.
The boat righted directly the sheet was cut, the wet sail flapped
furiously, and the boat, having way on her yielded to the helm and
wriggled slowly away before the whistling wind.
Mackintosh rose a few yards astern, and swam after the boat, with great
glaring eyes; the loose sail was not drawing, but the wind moved the boat
onward. However, Mackintosh gained slowly, and Hazel held up an oar like
a spear, and shouted to him that he must promise solemnly to forego all
violence, or he should never come on board alive.
Mackintosh opened his mouth to reply; but, at the same moment, his eyes
suddenly dilated in a fearful way, and he went under water, with a
gurgling cry. Yet not like one drowning, but with a jerk.
The next moment there was a great bubbling of the water, as if displaced
by some large creatures struggling below, and then the surface was
stained with blood.
And, lest there should be any doubt as to the wretched man's fate, the
huge black fin of a monstrous shark came soon after, gliding round and
round the rolling boat, awaiting the next victim.
Now, while the water was yet stained with his life-blood, who, hurrying
to kill, had met with a violent death, the unwounded sailor, Fenner,
excited by the fracas, broke forth into singing, and so completed the
horror of a wild and awful scene; for still, while he shouted, laughed,
and sang, the shark swam calmly round and round, and the boat crept on,
her white sail bespattered with blood--which was not so before--and in
her bottom lay one man dead as a stone; and two poor wretches, Prince and
Welch, their short-lived feud composed forever, sat openly sucking their
bleeding wounds, to quench for a moment their intolerable thirst.
Oh, little do we, who never pass a single day without bite or sup, know
the animal Man, in these dire extremities.