A Thrust through and through.
As soon as the Catamaran had fairly recovered her equilibrium, Snowball condescended to climb aboard. The ludicrous appearance of the negro, as he stood dripping upon the deck, might have excited laughter; but neither Ben Brace, nor his acolyte, nor the little Lalee, were in a mood for mirth. On the contrary, the curious incident that had just occurred was yet unexplained; and the awe with which it had inspired them still continued to hold all three in a sort of speechless control. Snowball himself was the first to break silence.
“Good Gorramity!” he exclaimed, his teeth chattering like castanets, as the words passed between them. “Wha’s all de rumpus ’bout? Wha you tink, Massa Ben? Wha make dat dratted fuss under de raff? De water be plash bout so I’ve see nuffin, ’cepting a big black heap o’ someting. Golly! I b’lieve it war de jumbe,—de debbil!”
The terrified looks of the speaker, while giving utterance to these words,—especially when pronouncing the dreaded name of the jumbe—told that he was serious in what he said; and that he actually believed the devil to have been the agent who had been causing the mysterious commotion!
The English sailor, though not entirely free from a certain tinge of superstition, did not share Snowball’s belief. Though unable, by any experience he had ever gone through, to account for the odd incident, still he could not ascribe it to supernatural agency. The blow which started the plank on which Snowball had been standing had communicated a shock to the whole structure. It might have been given by some huge fish, or other monster of the deep; and though unaccountable and unexpected, might, nevertheless, be quite natural. It was the shaking which the Catamaran kept up afterwards,—almost to the spilling of the whole crew into the water,—that most perplexed the old man-o’-war’s-man. He could not imagine why a fish, or any other creature, having butted its head once against the “keel” of the craft, would not instantly desist from such an idle encounter, and make off as fast as fins could carry it.
Ben’s first impression was, that a whale had by chance risen under the raft; as he had known them to do against the sides of ships. But then the persistence of the creature, whatever it was, in its odd attack, argued something more than accident. On the other hand, if the attack was designed, and had been made by a whale, of whatever species, the sailor knew that it would not have left off after merely shaking the raft. A whale, with a single flirt of his tail, would have sent the whole structure flying into the air, sunk it down into the deep, or scattered it in fifty fragments over the surface of the water.
One of these things a whale would undoubtedly have done. So believed Ben Brace; and therefore the creature that had come so near capsizing them could not be a whale. What was it, then? A shark? No. It could not be a shark. Though there are two or three species of these monsters, quite as large as good-sized whales, the sailor never knew of their assaulting anything after that fashion.
As they stood speculating on the cause of their curious adventure, a shout from Snowball announced that the ex-cook had at length discovered the explanation.
Snowball’s first thought, after having partially recovered from his fright, was to examine the plank from which, like an acrobat from his spring-board, he had made that involuntary somersault.
There, just by the spot on which he had been standing, appeared an object that explained everything: a sharp, bony, proboscis-like implement, standing up a full foot’s length out of the timber, slightly obliqued from the perpendicular, and as firmly imbedded in the wood as if it had been driven in by the blows of a blacksmith’s hammer!