“Oh, look dere, dere! what dat rum fis?” he suddenly exclaimed, pointing to a short distance from the raft.
Dick looked, and saw what a sailor dreads more than any human foe—the black triangular fin of a huge shark which was noiselessly gliding by, just beneath the surface, and turning its wicked eye towards Charley and himself. A blow from the monster’s tail or nose might easily upset the raft, when they to a certainty would become its prey. Dick grasped his pole to do battle, should the creature come nearer, and he at once began beating the water on every side and shouting at the top of his voice. The shark, an arrant coward by nature, kept at a distance, but his dark fin could still be seen as he circled round and round the raft, waiting, Dick feared, for an opportunity to rush in and make an attack.
“He shall pay for it with one of his eyes, if he does,” said Dick to himself.
“What for make all that noise?” asked Charley.
“Why do you sing out ‘youngster’ sometimes?” inquired Dick. “Because you have a fancy for it, I’ve a notion, and so I have a fancy just now to shout away. I mus’n’t frighten the little chap,” he muttered to himself. “It won’t do to tell him what Jack Shark is looking after.”
Thus Dick sat on till he thought by the position of the sun that it must be noon, when he gave Charley his dinner and cup of water—he himself eating but sparingly, for fear of diminishing his scanty store and depriving the child of food.
“I can hold out much longer than he can,” he said to himself, “and I must not let him get into bad case.”
Every now and then Dick stood up and gazed around the horizon, anxiously looking out for the signs of a breeze which might bring up some ship. The sun was again sinking beneath the ocean, which continued glass-like as before. At length night crept over the world of waters, and the brilliant stars shone down from the dark sky, each one reflected clearly in the mirror-like deep.
“What all those pretty things up dere?” asked Charley, waking suddenly from his first sleep; “get me some to play wid, Dick.”
“Just what I can’t do, boy,” answered Dick. “All those are stars far away in the sky, and I have heard say they are worlds; but how they stop up is more than I can tell, except God keeps them there.”