“Yes, I think so. Cook has been throwing scraps overboard, I suppose.—See, there goes an empty meat-tin.”
As he spoke the article named rose into the air, and fell with a splash in the water. At the same time Jim Slagg was seen to clamber on the bulwarks and look over.
“Come here—look alive, Stumps!” he shouted.
Stumps, whose proper name, it is but fair to state, was John Shanks, clambered clumsily to his friend’s side just in time to see a shark open its horrid jaws and swallow the meat-tin.
“Well now, I never!” exclaimed Slagg. “He didn’t even smell it to see if it was to his taste.”
“P’r’aps he’s swallowed so many before,” suggested Stumps, “that he takes for granted it’s all right.”
“Well it’s on’y flavour; and he has caught a Tartar this time,” returned the other, “unless, maybe, tin acts like pie-crust does on human vitals.”
The low deep voice of the captain was heard at this moment ordering a reef to be taken in the top-sails, and then it began to strike Robin and Sam that the breeze was freshening into something like a gale, and that there were some ominous-looking clouds rising on the windward horizon. Gazing at this cloud-bank for a few minutes, the captain turned and ordered the top-sails to be close-reefed, and most of the other sails either furled or reduced to their smallest size.
He was in good time, and the vessel was ready for the gale, when it rushed down on them hissing like a storm-fiend.
The good ship bent before the blast like a willow, but rose again, and, under the influence of able seamanship, went bravely on her course, spurning the billows from her swelling bows.