A FIGHT UNDER WATER.
“He saw my movement, and immediately swam over the rock, and placed himself above me. Well, what was to be done next, and what do you suppose I did? You know there is a little fish called the cuttle-fish. It is not much of a fish; it is not handsome; it cannot swim fast, and is not heavy on the fight. When pursued it throws out a sort of inky substance, which blackens the water and makes it sufficiently cloudy to enable the cuttle-fish to escape. It carries this ink in a bag, and keeps it laid up ready for use. Perhaps you might call him a marine editor; that is, the sort of editor that does not fight, but defends himself by slinging ink in the face of his adversaries.
“I was not in a condition to fight, and so I quickly thought I would play cuttle-fish. On one side of the rock the bottom was a sandy mud, and I immediately conceived the idea of stirring up this mud, thickening the water, and so making a cloud, behind which I could escape. With my pick I stirred the mud, and in less than ten seconds I had the water all around me very thick and cloudy.
“Then I slipped back to the other side of the rock, and went above. I reached the side of the boat with just strength enough to lay hold of it. The men saw that something was wrong, and they instantly seized me, and pulled me on board. They had become alarmed at my long absence, as I was under water nearly twice the time I had been at any previous descent.
A NARROW ESCAPE.
“Well, this is not the whole of the story. If I should take off my boot—the right one—you would see some very ugly scars on my foot. That shark watched the water where I was, and just as I reached the surface, and was being pulled into the boat, he discovered me. He darted for me, whirled on his back,—sharks always have to turn on their backs to seize their prey,—and tried to take in my foot.
“The men saw him coming, and they pulled me in about as fast as any man was ever pulled into a boat. That shark did not get me, as, of course, you believe, but he did get hold of the end of my foot. Two toes are gone, and the others are pretty well scarred. If he had made his dive at me one second earlier, I do not believe I should have had any foot on this leg to boast of. Confound these sharks, any how. They do not respect a white man at all, or half as much as they do a brown-skinned native.
“Take a lot of sharks when they are not particularly hungry, and a lot of niggers may swim around them, and they will be as sociable as if they belonged to the same family; but just let them see a white man in the water, and they will take him in as readily as a bull-dog would take in a beefsteak.
“I have been some time telling this story to you, but the whole occurrence did not consume more than two or three minutes.”
PREPARATORY ARRANGEMENTS.