“Look, there’s another shark; what a number we’ve seen within the last day or two, captain. Is there any truth in that idea that a shark following a ship means that there’s going to be a death on board?”
“But this one isn’t following the ship; he’s going very nearly clean in the contrary direction.”
“Yes, I know. But do you think there’s anything in the idea?”
“Why, I think that if somebody died every time a shark followed a ship there’d soon be none of us left to go to sea at all. What the joker’s really smelling after is the stuff that’s thrown overboard from the cook’s galley from time to time.”
“Really? Well, there goes another weird legend of the sea—weird but romantic.”
“It’d be a good thing if a few more of them went overboard,” laughed the matter-of-fact captain. “They soon will, too—a good many have already. In the old ‘windjammer,’ days when you had nothing to do half the voyage but sit and whistle for a breeze, these yarns got into Jack’s head and stuck there. Now with steam and quick voyages, and a rattling spell of work in stowing cargo every few days or so, Jack hasn’t got time to bother about that sort of thing.”
“Then sailors aren’t superstitious any more?”
“No more than shore folk. I’ve seen landsmen both on board ship and ashore who could give points in that line to the scarriest old Jack-tar who ever munched salt horse, and knock him hollow at that.”
“Then you’ve no superstitions of your own, captain—you, a sailor?”
“Not one; I don’t believe any such nonsense.”