“My cap,” said Jackson solemnly; “and, but for the mercy of God I also might have been in the same place!”
It gave us all a thrill, I can tell you, the sight of this old cap, which must have floated off Jackson’s head when he dived to escape the rush of the shark. The brute had swallowed it, no doubt, greedily, thinking it had got the owner.
As for Jackson himself, when he clambered up over the side again and came inboard, his face was as white as a table-cloth. I did not hear him, either, joking about the deck all day afterwards in his usual way; although the young sailor, besides being the smartest of the hands at his work, had hitherto been the life of the crew, always laughing and chaffing the others, as well as being the first to lead a song on the fo’c’s’le of an evening. The startling discovery of his cap in the shark’s stomach, coupled with the reflection that, had not Providence intervened in his behalf, he might have also been swallowed up, seemed to have completely sobered him for the time.
The other hands, however, were not much affected by the incident; and, presently, when the bight of the rope round the shark was unloosed and the body allowed to drop overboard, Moggridge sang out in a triumphant voice: “Now we’ve got rid of Jonah, we’ll have a shift of wind at last!”
“Why does the boatswain say that?” I asked Captain Miles. “What had the shark to do with the weather?”
“Well, you see, my boy,” he answered, “sailors are generally superstitious, and they always think that killing a shark brings good luck of some sort. Now, the best sort of luck we can have would be a good stiff south-wester, or something of that sort, to drive us on our way across the Atlantic, as we have experienced nothing but light breezes since we left the islands, barely making five hundred miles’ distance from Sombrero. We’ll never get to England at this rate in a month of Sundays.”
Unlike most prophecies referring to the weather, which, as a rule, must generally be made after the event to be correct, that of the old boatswain, curiously enough, turned out a true one, for, although we had been only favoured with light winds from the time of Jackson’s escape from the shark and all the while the ill-fated brute followed in our wake like a phantom of evil, not many hours elapsed after we had captured the animal before a strong southerly breeze sprang up. This, shifting round later on more to the westwards, came right astern of the vessel—thus enabling her to spread studding-sails and sky-sails, exposing every rag of canvas she could carry from truck to deck.
The wind, too, fortunately, was not a cat’s-paw either, like the shifting airs we had previously had, for it lasted us ten days at one stretch, carrying us well to the south-east of Bermuda and almost more than half-way to the Azores.
During all this time, no very remarkable incident occurred on board, save that, whether owing to change of air or through some deficiency of their native diet, three out of the half a dozen turtle, which Captain Miles was hoping to carry home for the lord mayor’s banquet, died one by one. They were hove over the side in the same fashion; and, as I watched their shelly backs floating astern, I could see flocks of sea-birds settle down on them, evidently rejoicing in having such an unexpected feast. A pig, too, was killed one day, supplying us in the cabin with savoury roast pork, which was an agreeable change from the salt beef and boiled fowls that were our ordinary fare—although, as the hen-coops were becoming rapidly untenanted, I should not have much longer to complain of any monotony of the latter item of our diet, I thought.
But, if there was nothing to chronicle of any stirring character I enjoyed the voyage immensely, being as happy as the day was long.