“Because it’s something else to do than forage for itself. I dare say its master an’t far off.”
“What is it?”
“That be the pilot-fish. See! turns away from us. It gone back to him as has sent it.”
“Sent it! Who, Ben?”
“A shark, for sarten. Didn’t I tell ye? Look yonder. Two o’ them, as I live; and the biggest kind they be. Slash my timbers if I iver see such a pair! They have fins like lug-sails. Look! the pilot’s gone to guide ’em. Hang me if they bean’t a-comin’ this way!”
William had looked in the direction pointed out by his companion. He saw the two great dorsal fins standing several feet above the water. He knew them to be those of the white shark: for he had already seen these dreaded monsters of the deep on more than one occasion.
It was true, as Ben had hurriedly declared. The little pilot-fish, after coming within twenty fathoms of the raft, had turned suddenly in the water, and gone back to the sharks; and now it was seen swimming a few feet in advance of them, as if in the act of leading them on!
The boy was struck with something in the tone of his companion’s voice, that led him to believe there was danger in the proximity of these ugly creatures; and to say the truth, Ben did not behold them without a certain feeling of alarm. On the deck of a ship they might have been regarded without any fear; but upon a frail structure like that which supported the castaways—their feet almost on a level with the surface of the water—it was not so very improbable that the sharks might attack them!
In his experience the sailor had known cases of a similar kind. It was no matter of surprise, that he should feel uneasiness at their approach, if not actual fear.
But there was no time left either for him to speculate as to the probabilities of such an attack, or for his companion to question him about them.