Their numbers, too, seemed to be continually increasing. On looking out to sea others might be noticed swimming up, as if they had come from a distance. No doubt that red conflagration was a signal that summoned them from afar. Like enough the sight was not new to them—it was not the first time they had witnessed the burning of a ship and had been present at the spectacle; before now they had assisted at the dénouement, and were ever after ready to welcome such a catastrophe, and hasten towards it from afar.
I really could not help thinking that these monsters of the deep possessed some such intelligence, as they swam around the fated barque—casting towards it their ogreish expecting looks.
They came around the raft as well—indeed, they appeared to be thicker there than elsewhere—as though we who stood upon it were to be the prey that would first fall into their ravenous jaws. So thick were they, that two or three could be seen side by side, swimming together as though they were yoked; and at each moment they grew bolder and came nearer to the timbers. Some already swam so close to the raft, that they were within reach of a blow from the handspikes, but not any one attempted to touch them. On the contrary, the word was passed round for no one to strike or assail them in any way. Just then they were doing good work; they were to be let alone!
Little as the sailors would have liked to see such shoals of these dreaded creatures at any other time—for between sailor and shark there is a constant antipathy—just then the sight was welcome to them. They knew that they themselves were out of reach of the hideous monsters; and at a glance they had comprehended the advantage they were deriving from their presence. They saw that they were the guardians of the raft—and that, but for them, the blacks would long since have taken to the water and followed it. The fear of the sharks alone restrained them; and no wonder it did, for the whole surface of the sea between the blazing vessel and the raft now seemed alive with these horrid creatures!
It was no longer wondered at that the negroes had not precipitated themselves into the water and swam after us. It would have been a bold leap for any of them to have taken—a leap, as it were, into the very jaws of death.
And, yet, death was behind them—death quick and sure, and, perhaps, of all others the most painful—death by fire. In setting the poor wretches free, I had been under the humane impression that I had given them the easier alternative of being drowned. I now saw that I was mistaken. No such alternative was in their power. There was no longer a choice between burning and drowning. It now lay between burning and being devoured by the sharks!
Chapter Fifty Nine.
An awful alternative it was, and for a long while the ill-starred victims seemed to linger in their choice. Hard choice between two horrid forms of death! Little did it matter which, and the knowledge of this rendered them indifferent whether to spring forth or stand still. Death was before them as well as behind—turn which way they might, death stared them in the face—soon and certain—and on every side they saw its threatening arm—before, behind, above, and around them. The utter hopelessness of escape had numbed their energies—they were paralysed by despair.