CHAPTER XXI.
A PURPLE rippling line upon the water had for some time been coming downupon them with great rapidity; but, bent on bloody work, they had notobserved it. The boat heeled over under the sudden gust; but the ruffianhad already lost his footing under Hazel's blow, and, the boom strikinghim almost at the same moment, he went clean over the gunwale into thesea; he struck it with his knife first.
All their lives were now gone if Cooper, who had already recovered hisfeet, had not immediately cut the sheet with his knife; there was no timeto slack it; and, even as it was, the lower part of the sail wasdrenched, and the boat full of water. "Ship the helm!" he roared.
The boat righted directly the sheet was cut, the wet sail flappedfuriously, and the boat, having way on her yielded to the helm andwriggled slowly away before the whistling wind.
Mackintosh rose a few yards astern, and swam after the boat, with greatglaring eyes; the loose sail was not drawing, but the wind moved the boatonward. However, Mackintosh gained slowly, and Hazel held up an oar likea spear, and shouted to him that he must promise solemnly to forego allviolence, or he should never come on board alive.
Mackintosh opened his mouth to reply; but, at the same moment, his eyessuddenly dilated in a fearful way, and he went under water, with agurgling cry. Yet not like one drowning, but with a jerk.
The next moment there was a great bubbling of the water, as if displacedby some large creatures struggling below, and then the surface wasstained with blood.
And, lest there should be any doubt as to the wretched man's fate, thehuge black fin of a monstrous shark came soon after, gliding round andround the rolling boat, awaiting the next victim.
Now, while the water was yet stained with his life-blood, who, hurryingto kill, had met with a violent death, the unwounded sailor, Fenner,excited by the fracas, broke forth into singing, and so completed thehorror 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 inher bottom lay one man dead as a stone; and two poor wretches, Prince andWelch, their short-lived feud composed forever, sat openly sucking theirbleeding wounds, to quench for a moment their intolerable thirst.
Oh, little do we, who never pass a single day without bite or sup, knowthe animal Man, in these dire extremities.
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