As to Max, his feelings rose and fell capriciously, and without any apparent cause; he was sanguine or depressed, not from a consideration of all our circumstances, and a favourable or unfavourable conclusion drawn therefrom; but according as this view or that, for the moment, impressed his mind. He rendered no reasons for his hopes or his fears. At one moment, you would judge from his manner and conversation that we were indeed out upon some “holy day excursion,” with no serious danger impending over us; the next, without any thing to account for the change, he would appear miserably depressed and wretched.
Soon after sunset the moon rose—pale and dim at first, but shining out with a clearer and brighter radiance, as the darkness increased. The wind held steadily from the same quarter, and it was determined to continue through the night, the arrangement for taking charge of the sailing of the boat, in turn. Browne and Max insisted on sharing between themselves the watch for the entire night, saying that they had taken no part in that of the one previous, and that it would be useless to divide the twelve hours of darkness into more than two watches. This was finally agreed upon, the wind being so moderate that the same person could steer the yawl and manage the sail without difficulty.
Before lying down, I requested Max, who took the first turn, to awake me at the same time with Browne, a part of whose watch I intended to share. I fell asleep, looking up at the moon, and the light clouds sailing across the sky, and listening to the motion of the water beneath the boat. At first I slumbered lightly, without losing a sort of dreamy consciousness, so that I heard Max humming over to himself fragments of tunes, and odd verses of old songs, and
even knew when he shifted his position in the stern, from one side to the other. At length I must have fallen into a deep sleep: I do not know how long it had lasted, (it seemed to me but a short time), when I was aroused by an exclamation, from Max, as I at first supposed; but on sitting up I saw that Browne was at the helm, while Max was sleeping at my side. On perceiving that I was awake, Browne, from whom the exclamation had proceeded, pointed to something in the water, just astern. Following the direction of his finger with my eye, I saw, just beneath the surface, a large ghastly-looking white shark, gliding stealthily along, and apparently following the boat. Browne said that he had first noticed it about half an hour before, since which time it had steadily followed us, occasionally making a leisurely circuit round the boat, and then dropping astern again. A moment ago, having fallen into a doze at the helm, and awaking with a start, he found himself leaning over the gunwale, and the shark just at his elbow. This had startled him, and caused the sudden exclamation by which I had been aroused. I shuddered at his narrow escape, and I acknowledge that the sight of this hideous and formidable creature, stealing along in our wake, and manifesting an intention to keep us company, caused me some uneasy sensations. He swam with his dorsal fin almost at the surface, and his broad nose scarcely three feet from the rudder. His colour rendered him distinctly visible.
“What a spectre of a fish it is,” said Browne, “with his pallid, corpse-like skin, and noiseless motion; he has no resemblance to any of the rest of his kind, that I have ever seen. You know what the sailors would say, if they should see him dogging us in this way; Old Crosstrees, or Spot, would shake their heads ominously, and set us down as a doomed company.”
“Aside from any such superstitious notions, he is an unpleasant and dangerous neighbour, and we must be circumspect while he is prowling about.”
“It certainly won’t do to doze at the helm,” resumed Browne; “I consider that I have just now had a really narrow escape. I was leaning quite over the gunwale; a lurch of the boat would have thrown me overboard, and then there would have been no chance for me.”
There would not, in fact, have been the shadow of a chance.
“Even as it was,” resumed he, “if this hideous-looking monster had been as active and vigilant as some of his tribe, it would have fared badly with me. I have heard of their seizing persons standing on the shore, where the water was deep enough to let them swim close in; and Spot tells of a messmate of his, on one of his voyages in a whaler, who was carried off, while standing entirely out of water, on the carcass of a whale, which he was assisting in cutting up, as it lay alongside the ship. The shark threw himself upon the carcass, five or six yards from where the man was busy;—worked himself slowly along the slippery surface, until within reach of his victim; knocked him off into the water, and then sliding off himself, seized and devoured him.”