“Pass me the other gun, Mark,” cried the captain. “Look out, Gregory, whatever you do. Another attack like that, and the brute will have us over, and—”
He left his sentence unfinished, while Mark passed the gun, and then resumed his grasp of the thwart upon which he was seated, holding on with both hands, while in the agony of dread he suffered the great drops of perspiration stood out upon his forehead, and ran together, and trickled down the sides of his nose, as his breath came thick and fast.
Some very heroic lads would, no doubt, have drawn a knife, or seized an oar, or done something else very brave in defence, but in those brief moments Mark was recalling stories he had read about sharks seizing struggling people as they were swimming, and that the water was stained with blood, and one way and another he was as thoroughly frightened as ever he had been in his life.
“Now, then!” said the captain, as the shark completed another circuit of the boat, and was about to repeat his evolution. “Both together at his head, and fire low as he rises.”
It was a quick shot on the part of both, delivered just as the shark rose from the water again to leap at the boat, which probably represented to him an eatable fish swimming on the surface, while, as the two puffs of smoke darted from the guns and the loud reports rang out, the great fish fell short, but struck its nose against the side of the gig, and sank down in the water, the back fin disappearing, and coming up again fifty yards away.
“I think we’ll be contented,” said the captain, closing the breech of his piece, and passing it to Mark. “Let’s make a masterly retreat, Gregory.”
“Think he’ll come back?”
“I should say no,” replied the captain. “The brute has evidently had quite as much as he requires for the present.”
“Will it kill him?” asked Mark.
“Can’t say. I should think not. He must be badly wounded though, to sheer off like that.”