They could not help asking him why he had not at once made his escape to the boar, instead of staying to fight the monster.
Asgeelo’s look was as gloomy as death as he replied,
“They tore in pieces my son, Sahib—my only son—when he first went down, and I have to avenge him. I killed a hundred on the Malabar coast before I left it forever. That shark did not attack me; I attacked him.”
“If you saw one now would you attack him?”
“Yes, Sahib.”
Brandon expressed some apprehension, and wished him not to risk his life.
But Asgeelo explained that a shark could be successfully encountered by a skillful swimmer. The shark is long, and has to move about in a circle which is comparatively large; he is also a coward, and a good swimmer can strike him if he only chooses. He again repeated triumphantly that he had killed more than a hundred to avenge his son.
In his last venture Asgeelo had been no more successful than before. Needle Island was now to the southwest, and Brandon thought that their only chance was to try farther over toward the west, where they had not yet explored.
They rowed at once back to the point from which they had set out, and then went on about a hundred and fifty yards to the west. From this place, as they looked toward the islet, the three rocks seemed so close together that they appeared blended, and the three sharp, needlelike points appeared to issue from one common base. This circumstance had an encouraging effect, for it seemed to the brothers as though their ancestor might have looked upon those rocks from this point of view rather than from any other which had as yet come upon the field of their observation.
This time Brandon himself resolved to go down; partly because he thought that Asgeelo had worked long enough, and ought not to be exhausted on that first day, and partly on account of an intolerable impatience, and an eagerness to see for himself rather than intrust it to others.