‘Do you know what that is?’ asked Mr. Frankston, pointing to a black curved substance out of the water, and apparently belonging to some submarine monster which was proceeding in a parallel direction, and at no great distance. ‘Not a know do I know,’ replied the bushman. ‘It’s the back fin of a _shark_, and he’s no small one either. He’d pick us up at his leisure, if anything happened to the boat, like a turkey among grasshoppers.’ ‘By George!’ said the man of the forest, ‘I wish I was on Ben Bolt now, without saddle or bridle, and him bucking his best, this minute! There is some get away, if anything broke, short of your neck. But here it seems to be the Never-Never country, and no mistake.’ They had made what is nautically called ‘a long board,’ in tacking at immense angles, so as to take fullest advantage of the wind, which seemed to increase rapidly, until something like the foretaste of the fury of a gale was upon them. The sky had darkened; night was not far distant. The sea had risen, and the long-backed rollers made it increasingly difficult for so small a craft to avoid an upset. Nothing but the splendid steering of their skipper, the perfect handling of the crew, combined with the weatherly qualities of the _Haidée_, gave them the chance of riding it out. ‘Steady all, and look out for your heads while she jibes,’ sung out old Paul. ‘I think we shall fetch smooth water with this tack; if so we’re safe for dinner, with better appetites than usual.’ ‘And if not?’ inquired Ernest, with an anxious gaze at Antonia, who sat drenched with spray and pale, but with the most perfect composure visible upon her unmoved features. ‘Did you ever hear tell of one Davy Jones?’ made answer Mr. Frankston, whose furrowed face, torn with anxiety for the fate of his soul’s darling, contradicted the lightness of his tone, ‘for if we are sent back into the gale, we are very like to mess with him this evening.’ And now, as the tiny bark swung round to her altered course, and, lying close up to the wind, flew down with hazardous swiftness towards the entrance to the little bay, which to them was a haven of safety, Ernest, true to his lifelong habit of observation, scanned the faces of his companions with half-unconscious curiosity. Calm and strong sat the old man, with the tiller in his sinewy hand; his eye was steady, his hand was true, and none could have told by reading his countenance that the life of one he held a thousandfold dearer than his own hung on the balance of a frail boat and a stormy sea. The two sailors had the ordinary non-committal expression always observable in trained seamen, unvarying apparently, whether a sail be split, a leak be sprung, or a hopeless fire be discovered in the hold.