“Oh, I say, Mas’r Harry, don’t talk like that!” he cried; “it’s enough to give a chap the shudders. It was only my fun about the little niggers. Now, then, I think I can shake it out of the loop.”
The sharks were just below us, and eight or ten feet down, as Tom lowered the piece of coal right to the surface, without making any splash and disturbing the water so as to interrupt our view of what we hoped would take place. Then giving the string a jerk he loosened the coal, which began to descend rapidly, its bright black surface flashing in the brilliant sunshine till it was half-way down, when there was a tremendous swirl in the water, which danced and flashed and obscured our vision, only that we caught sight of something—of two somethings—quite white, and then by degrees the water calmed down, and there were the two sharks still there, but turned round with their heads in a fresh direction.
“Why, they took the coal, and one of ’em’s swallowed it, Mas’r Harry,” cried Tom excitedly.
“No, Tom: I think I can see it right down below there,” I said; “but they did have a try at it.”
“What are you young fellows doing there?” said a voice; and, as we turned sharply round, there stood the captain. “What! are you fishing?”
“No, sir,” said Tom; “I only dropped something over to see if the big fish there would take it.”
“Oh, I see!” he exclaimed. “Sharks! Yes, there are plenty of them, my lads. No bathing here. You should get the cook to give you a lump of bad pork, and hang that over by the string: that would fetch them.”
Tom took the hint, and running to the cook told him what the captain said, returning at the end of a minute to where I was still watching the two monsters, the captain having gone.
“I’ll tie this tight on, Mas’r Harry,” cried Tom, suiting the action to the word. “I say, don’t I wish we had a hook!”
The piece of meat was soon firmly secured, and twisting one end of the string round his hand, Tom took his old place beside me, chuckling and laughing, and began to lower down his bait.