And then appeared Dao Singh. How he had heard the racket I do not know. Light as a panther, and with an eye wickeder than the shark’s own, he slid along the deck and stood right at the other elbow of the bully.
“Let the rope go, as Webb Sahib say,” he hissed into Bob’s ear.
The bully was as amazed as he could well be and keep on his pins. He stepped back and glared from Thank and me to Old Tom, and then around at Singh.
“Holy mackerel!” he murmured. “Do the hull of ye’s want the blamed fish? Then, take him!”
The watch burst out laughing. Mr. Barney had himself come forward, and now he spoke.
“Get a harpoon, Webb, and kill the beast at once. That will settle the controversy. I’m not sure that the little one isn’t right. We’re all too big to torture even such a beast as a shark.”
That was the kind of influence Phillis Duane had over all of us. The captain had her on the bridge with him and showed her everything he did when he took the sun’s altitude, and all that. Mr. Gates talked with her by the hour. Mr. Barney was forever finding something new with which she could amuse herself. And the black cook and Dao Singh almost came to blows over who should wait upon her the most.
Then came the day when, off Hatteras, we sighted another four-masted ship. She crept out of a fogbank to leeward of us and it was some time before we saw her clearly enough to be sure. That she was tacking northward was the main fact at first which urged us to believe it was our sister ship.
But in an hour it came clearer, and we could be sure. It was the Seamew, standing in very prettily, and it was plain she had sighted us, too. We tacked and her course brought her across our stern. We ran so near the captains could hail each other. Old Cap’n Si waved his glass and shouted:
“We’re about to bid you a fond farewell, Joe! Next tack will put us ahead of you. That apple’s mine, by jolly!”