"Somehow or other, in speaking to her, by this time I forgot entirely about keeping up the sham cadet, and slipped into my own way again; so all at once I felt her two dark-blue eyes looking at me curiously. 'How!—why,' exclaimed she suddenly, and then laughing, 'you seem to know all about it!—why, you speak—have you been studying sea affairs so thoroughly, sir, with your friend, who—but I do think, now, one can scarcely trust to what you have said?' 'Well—why—well,' said I, fiddling with the shark-hook, 'I don't know how it is, but I feel as if I must have been at sea some time or other before; you wouldn't suppose it, ma'am, but whenever I fix my eyes on a particular rope, I seem almost to know the name of it.' 'And its use too?' asked she, merrily. 'I shouldn't wonder!' said I; 'perhaps I was born at sea, you know, madam!' and I gave a side-look to notice how she took it. 'Ah! perhaps!' said Miss Hyde, laughing: 'but do you know one sometimes fancies these things; and now I think of it, sir, I even imagined for a moment I had seen yourself before!' 'Oh,' said I, 'that couldn't be the case; I'm sure, for my part, I should recollect clear enough if I'd seen—a—a lady anywhere! I think you said something of the kind, ma'am, that night of the last squall—about the water and the clouds, ma'am, you remember?' The young lady looked away, though a notion seemed to flash through her mind. 'Yes,' said she, 'that terrible rain, you were——' 'Washed into the lee-scuppers,' said I, indifferently, for I didn't want her to suspect it was I that had kissed her hand in the dark as I carried her in. 'I hope Sir Charles and yourself got in safe, Miss Hyde?' However, she was watching the water alongside, and suddenly she exclaimed, 'Dear! what a pretty little fish!' 'By heavens!' said I, seeing the creature with its sharp nose and blue bars, as it glanced about near the surface, and then swam in below the ship's bilge again, 'that's one of the old villain's pilots—he's lying right across our keel! I wish I could catch that shark!'
"The pork was of no use for such an old sea-lawyer, and I cast a wistful eye on the Irishwoman's fat pug-dog stretched asleep on her shawl by the bulwark; 'he'd take that in a trice though!' I even laid out some marline from a stern-locker, and noticed how neatly one could pass the hook under her belly round to the tail, and seize her so snugly on, muzzled and all; but it was no go, with the devil to pay afterwards. All of a sudden I heard somebody hawking and spitting above the awning forward, near where the cockatoo kept still trying to master his own name. 'The Yankee, for a thousand!' thought I; 'is Daniel trying to walk along the spanker-boom?' Next, someone sung out, 'Hal-loo-oo-oo!' as if there was a tomahawk over him, ready to split his brain. Miss Hyde looked alarmed, when the Scotch mate, as I thought, roared, 'Shiver my tops'ls!' Then it was a sailor hailing gruffly, 'Bloody Capting Brown—bloody Capting Brown—Capting Brown!'
"'Somebody drunk aloft!' thought I, walking forward to see; when a funny little black head peeped round the awning with a yellow nose as sharp as a marling-spike, and red spectacles, seemingly, round its keen little eyes; then, with a flutter and a hop, the steward's pet mina-bird [16] came down, and lighted just under the cockatoo. 'Ha!' said I, laughing, 'it's only Parson Barnacle!' as the men called him—a sooty little creature scarce bigger than a blackbird, with a white spot on each wing, and a curious pair of natural glasses on his head, which they kept in the forecastle and taught all sorts of 'jaw,' till they swore he could have put the ship about, took kindly to tar, and hunted the cockroaches like a cat.
"No doubt he was glad to meet his countryman the cockatoo, but Tippoo stuck up his crest, swelled his chops, and looked dreadfully frightened; while the mina-bird cocked his head on one side, gave a knowing wink as it were, though all the time as grave, with his spectacles, as a real parson. 'How's her head?' croaked he, in a voice like a quartermaster's; 'blowing hard!' 'Old Capting Brown!' and hopped nearer to the poor cockatoo, who could stand it no longer, but hooked himself up the back-stay as fast as possible, out of sight, the chain running with him; and just as I swung myself clear of the awning to run aloft for a catch of it, out flew Parson Barnacle to the end of the crojack-yard, while the cockatoo gave a flap that loosed the kitmagar's lubberly hitch, and sent him down with his wings spread on the water.
"At another time it wouldn't have cost me a thought to go head-foremost after him, when I heard his young mistress exclaiming, 'Oh, poor dear Tippoo will be drowned!' but recollecting our hungry green friend on the other side, I jumped down for the end of a rope to slip myself quietly alongside with. However, at the very moment, Tom, the man-o'-war's-man, happening to come up from the forehatchway to throw something overboard, and seeing Miss Hyde's cockatoo, off went his shoes and jacket at once, and I heard the splash as he struck the water. I had scarce time to think, either, before I saw Mick O'Hooney's red head shoot up on deck, and heard him sing out, 'Man overboard, be the powers, boys! Folly my lader! Hurroo!' and over he sprang. 'Here's dip,' said another, and in half a minute every man that could swim was floundering in the smooth water alongside, or his head showing as it came up—pitching the cockatoo to each other, and all ready to enjoy their bathe; though, for my part, I made but one spring to the ship's starboard quarter, to use the only chance of saving the thoughtless fellows from a bloody fate to some of them.
"I knew the shark would be cautious at first, on such a sudden to-do, and I had marked his whereabouts while the men were well toward the bows; and 'hang it,' thought I, seeing the old woman's fat pug in my way, 'Dianny, or die all; I bear no malice, but you must go for it, my beauty!' As quick as thought, I made one turn of marline round her nose, took off the pork, and lashed her fast on to the hook all standing, in spite of her squeaks; then twisted the lady's shawl round the chain for a blind to it, and flung the whole right over the larboard quarter, where I guessed the old fellow would be slewing round astern to have a look out before he went fairly in chase. I watched the line sink slowly with the weight over the gunwale for half a minute, afraid to let him see my head, and trembling for fear I should hear a cry from one of the men: when jerk went the rope clear of a belaying-pin as he ran off with his bait. I took a quick turn to hook him smartly in the throat, and then eased off again till the 'cleets' brought him up with a 'surge' fit to have parted the line, had it not been good new inch-and-a-half rope—though, as it was, the big Indiaman would soon have sheered stern-round to the force of it, if he'd only pulled fair.
"The young lady stood noticing what I did, first in a perplexed sort of a way, and then with no little surprise, especially when the shark gave every now and then a fiercer tug, as he took a sweep astern; by this time, however, everybody was on deck in a crowd, the passengers all in a flurry, and half of the men scrambling up from alongside to tail on to the line, and run him out of water. So away they went with it full-speed towards the bows, as soon as the ladies were out of the way—dragging two or three cadets back-foremost, head over heels, down the poop stair—till, in spite of his tugging, the shark's round snout showed over the taffrail, with the mouth wide open under his chin, as it were, and one row of teeth laid flat behind another, like a comb-maker's shop-counter. A running bowline passed round his handsome waist, then another pull, and over he came on the poop, floundering fourteen feet long, and flourishing his tail for room, till the carpenter chopped it across, in a lucky moment with his axe.
"All hands gathered round the shark to see him cut up, which was as good as a play to them, becalmed as we were; when, to my no small dismay, I heard Mrs Brigadier Brady's loud voice asking where her dog was; and the brigadier himself, who seemed more afraid of his wife than anybody else, kept poking about with his red-faced English butler to find the animal. 'For God's sake,' said he, in a half whisper, twenty times over, 'haven't ye seen Mrs Brady's dog, any of ye?—she'll rout the ship inside out for it, captain, if we don't soon ase her mind.' However, I knew only Miss Hyde was aware who caught the shark, and as she didn't appear to have told, why of course I kept all fast myself. 'Here's a 'baccy-box!' sung out the big old boatswain, standing astride over the tail, while the cook and his black mate ripped away from the tail up. 'Hand over, if ye please, sir,' said 'ugly' Harry, 'it's mine, Mr Burton!' Harry gave it a wipe on his knee, and coolly bit a quid off the end of his lost pigtail. The next thing was Ford's hat, which no one claimed, so black Sambo clapped it on his woolly head.
"'What's that you've got there now, Sambo?' said the boatswain: 'out with it, my lad!' 'Golly!' chuckled the nigger, rolling the whites of his eyes and grinning like mad; 'oh sar, Misser Barton! dis 'ere shark riglar navligator! I 'clare to you, sar, um got chr'ometer aboard. Oh gum; berry much t'ink dis your own lost silber tickler, Misser Barton.' 'Bless me, so it is, my lad,' said the boatswain, as the black handed him a silver watch as big as a turnip, and he looked at the cook, who was busy fumbling with his knife. 'Sorry as you was taxed with it, doctor,' [17] said he, doubtfully; 'well, I'm blowed, though, it only goes an hour and a half—and here it's a-ticking yet.' Here a burst of laughter went round, and somebody sung out, 'Maybe the ould pawn-broking Judas of a shark winded it up hisself, just to mark the time o' his "goin' off the hooks."' 'I say, doctor,' hailed another, 'too bad, ain't it though, to cut up your uncle?' 'Ha, ha, ha,' cried the cadets and writers, looking at the Scotch surgeon; 'd' ye hear that, doctor? I wouldn't stand it. They say you ain't particular in Edinbro', though. Some rum mistakes happened there, eh, doctor?'
"The Scotchman got into a passion at this, being the worst cut they could give any fellow from a country where they were famous for kindred and body-snatching at once—but all of a sudden there was a 'Hulloo! Shiver my taw'sels! What's this? Let's see'; and the whole poopful of us were shoving together, and jumping on each other's shoulders to have a look. 'Well, we-ell,' said the old boatswain, as he peered curiously into the mess of shark's bowels—'I'll be blowed.' 'The likes o' that now!' croaked the old sailmaker, lifting up his two hands, ''tain't lucky, Mr Burton!' 'My eye! them's not young sharks, anyhow!' said one of the men. 'What's t'ou think they be, mun,' said the north-country Chips, 'but litter o' young blind poops? an' here's t' ou'd un, see, as deed's mutton! Dang him, but someun's got an' baited t' hook wi't, there's nou't else in 's guts.'