“Swim, for God’s sake!” cried the captain, who was now on deck; “he has not yet seen you. The boat, if possible, will get between you and him. Strike out, lads, for God’s sake!” My heart stood still: I felt weaker than a child as I gazed with horror at the dorsal fin of a large shark on the starboard quarter. Though in the water, the perspiration dropped from me like rain: the black was striking out like mad for the ship.
“Swim, Ned—swim!” cried several voices; “they never take black when they can get white.”
I did swim, and that desperately: the water foamed past me. I soon breasted the black, but could not head him. We both strained every nerve to be first, for we each fancied the last man would be taken. Yet we scarcely seemed to move: the ship appeared as far as ever from us. We were both powerful swimmers, and both of us swam in the French way called la brasse, or hand over hand, in English. There was something the matter with the boat’s falls, and they could not lower her.
“He sees you now!” was shouted; “he is after you!” Oh the agony of that moment! I thought of every thing at the same instant, at least so it seemed to me then. Scenes long forgotten rushed through my brain with the rapidity of lightning, yet in the midst of this I was striking out madly for the ship. Each moment I fancied I could feel the pilot-fish touching me, and I almost screamed with agony. We were now not ten yards from the ship: fifty ropes were thrown to us; but, as if by mutual instinct, we swam for the same.
“Hurra! they are saved!—they are alongside!” was shouted by the eager crew. We both grasped the rope at the same time: a slight struggle ensued: I had the highest hold. Regardless of every thing but my own safety, I placed my feet on the black’s shoulders, scrambled up the side, and fell exhausted on the deck. The negro followed roaring with pain, for the shark had taken away part of his heel. Since then, I have never bathed at sea; nor, I believe, has Sambo been ever heard again to assert that he would swim after a shark if he met one in the water.
[From Howitt’s Country Year-Book.]
THE TWO THOMPSONS.
By the wayside, not far from the town of Mansfield—on a high and heathy ground, which gives a far-off view of the minster of Lincoln—you may behold a little clump of trees, encircled by a wall. That is called Thompson’s Grave. But who is this Thompson; and why lies he so far from his fellows? In ground unconsecrated; in the desert, or on the verge of it—for cultivation now approaches it? The poor man and his wants spread themselves, and corn and potatoes crowd upon Thompson’s grave. But who is this Thompson; and why lies he here?
In the town of Mansfield there was a poor boy, and this poor boy became employed in a hosier’s warehouse. From the warehouse his assiduity and probity sent him to the counting-house; from the counting-house, abroad. He traveled to carry stockings to the Asiatic and the people of the south. He sailed up the rivers of Persia, and saw the tulips growing wild on their banks, with many a lily and flower of our proudest gardens. He traveled in Spain and Portugal, and was in Lisbon when the great earthquake shook his house over his head. He fled. The streets reeled; the houses fell; church towers dashed down in thunder across his path. There were flying crowds, shrieks, and dust, and darkness. But he fled on. The farther, the more misery. Crowds filled the fields when he reached them—naked, half-naked, terrified, starving, and looking in vain for a refuge. He fled across the hills, and gazed. The whole huge city rocked and staggered below. There were clouds of dust, columns of flame, the thunder of down-crashing buildings, the wild cries of men. He suffered amid ten thousand suffering outcasts.