“Rather fine language, young gentleman,” said the captain, patting him on the shoulder; “but I like the sentiment all the same, and I should not have drawn your attention to them if it had been what you thought. The bodies I mean are those of half-a-dozen sharks. There they are.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, Captain Bradleigh!” cried Jack. “How stupid of me!”
“Nothing to ask pardon for, sir,” said the captain, smiling. “See them?—Hold hard, Lenny.”
“Yes; quite plainly now. Six. How shadowy they look! Not very big though, are they?”
“Plenty big enough to tear a man to pieces. Why, that one’s a good nine feet long, and there isn’t one under six, I should say. But isn’t it strange how they seem to smell out danger? You know how they’ll follow a ship? Well, these brutes must have been following the canoes, expecting to get something, and this one being wrecked, they’re waiting by it as if they were ready for a grab at some poor wretch.”
“How horrible!”
“Ay, my lad, it is. I’m as bad as any of the sailors. Of course it’s the brutes’ nature; but I feel a thorough satisfaction when one is caught and killed; and if it was not that I don’t want to have any firing just now, I’d go back and make some kind of a dummy with a ship’s fender and some old clothes, and we’d pitch it overboard. It would tempt them to come at it, and we’d put in ball-cartridge and try a bit of shooting, and finish off this lot.”
“I wish you would,” cried Jack eagerly.
“Well, we’ll see after breakfast.”
Jack took up his gun and cocked it as he gazed down at the long, lithe creatures lying perfectly motionless beneath the injured canoe.