"In the olden times," he asked Sturdy, who had been here before, "didn't there used to be a very large shark borne on the hooks of the flag-ship and fed with a ration of pork every day, to prevent the men from swimming on shore?"
"Yes," said Sturdy, laughing; "though it wasn't in my day. But at the little village of Twyford in England, in the almshouse, there used to live, and I think lives till this day, an old sailor who, being desirous to go a-boozing, as it is called, swam on shore alongside the shark nearly all the way."
"What! and the shark didn't swallow him?"
"No; I reckon he didn't, Jack, else he would hardly be alive to tell the story every Christmas evening."
"Well, sir, how did he manage?"
"Oh, simply enough. He chose a clear moonlight night, when you could have seen down to the very bottom of the harbour. The sentry was in the know, though not in the swim. In fact, Tom Finch promised to smuggle him off a drop of grog if he turned his back and kept looking astern while the daring sailor dropped quietly over the bows.
"Tom Finch was a splendid swimmer, and he had not burdened himself with a superfluity of garments; but he had three necessaries of life, as he called them: item—a pretty-well-lined purse; item—a big canvas bag containing pieces of pork for the government shark; and item—a big, sharp dagger, with which, he told his messmates, he would rip that tiger of the seas open from stem to stern if he didn't play fair."
"But," said Jack, "weren't there other sharks about as well as the tame one?"
"He wasn't tame, Jack, by any means; but he was king of the water, and when he sailed round, all the others kept at a respectful distance. So Tom Finch could have had no better convoy.
"Well, Tom struck out. But he soon found that this swim of his was going to be no child's play. The distance hadn't looked very insurmountable from the fo'c's'le-head, nor was it; but Tom hadn't considered the tidal current.