I followed in her wake, and though I failed to keep near her, for the Pitcairn islanders are among the fastest swimmers in the world, I yet felt that I might be of some use or aid. Long before I could overtake her she had caught up the little fellow, and lifting him high above the water, was swimming easily towards me.
"Oh! you foolish boy!" she cried, "why did you come after me? do you want to be drowned again?" Here she smiled and showed her lovely teeth as if it was rather a good joke. It may have been, but at that time and place I was not in the humour to perceive it.
"I came for the same reason that you did, I suppose—because I could not stay behind. If anything had happened to you what should I have done? Here comes the boat, though, and we can talk it over on board."
Some little time had been expended in lowering the boat. The ship had been brought to, but even then—and with so light a wind—it was astonishing what a distance we had fallen behind. It was a curious sensation, such specks as we were upon the immense water-plain which stretched around to the horizon. However, the Florentia was strongly in evidence, and nearer and nearer came the whaleboat, with the captain at the steer-oar, and the men pulling as if they were laying on a crack harpooner to an eighty barrel whale.
We were now swimming side by side, Miranda talking to the little fellow, who had never lost consciousness, and did not seem particularly afraid of his position.
"How tremendously hard they are pulling!" I said; "they are making the boat spin again. One would think they were pulling for a wager."
"So they are," answered she, "for three lives, and perhaps another. See there! God in His mercy protect us."
I followed the direction of her turned head, and my heart stood still as my eye caught the fatal sign of the monster's presence at no great distance from us. It was the back fin of a shark!
"Do your best, my beloved," she continued; "we must keep together, and if he overtakes us before the boat reaches, splash hard and shout as loud as you can. I have seen a shark frightened before now; but please God it may not come to that."
The boat came nearer—still nearer—but, as it seemed to us, all too slowly. The men were pulling for their lives, I could notice, and the captain frantically urging them on. They had seen the dreaded signal before us, and had commenced to race from that moment. But for some delay in the tackle for lowering, they would have been up to us before now.