mate had the courses hauled up in the trails; 'twas a dead calm once more, and the blue water only swelled in the moonlight, like one sheet of rear-admiral's flags a-washing in a silver steep,--that's the likest thing I can fancy. When the ship lay still, up gets the black doctor, half asleep, and I daresay he had been laying in a cargo of Jamaica rum overnight: the bucket was just under his nose as he looked down to see where he was, and the moon shining into it. I heard him roar out, 'O de dibble!' and out he sprang to larboard, over the bulwarks, into the water. 'Man overboard, ahoy!' I sang out, and the whole watch came running from aft and forud to look over. 'Oh Christ!' says one o' the men, pointing with his finger--'Look.' Dido's head was just rising alongside; but just under the ship's counter what did we see but the black back-fin of the shark, coming slowly round, as them creatures do when they're not quite sure of anything that gives 'em the start. 'The shark! the shark!' said every one; 'he's gone, by ----' 'Down with the quarter-boat, men!' sings out the mate, and he ran to one of the falls to let it go. The young nigger, Jack, was amongst the rest of us; in a moment he off with his hat and shoes, took the cook's big carving-knife out of the galley at his back, and was overboard in a moment. He was the best swimmer I ever chanced to see, and the most fearless: the moonlight showed everything as plain as day, and he watched his time to jump right in where the shark's back-fin could be seen coming quicker along, with a wake shining down in the water at both fins and tail. Old Dido was striking out like a good un, and hailing for a rope, but he knew nothing at all of the shark. As for young Jack, he said afterwards he felt his feet come full slap on the fish's back, and then he laid out to swim under him and give him the length of his knife close by the jaw, when he'd turn up to bite--for 'twas what the youngsters along the Guinea coast were trained to do every day on the edge of the surf. However, curious enough, there wasn't another sign of this confounded old sea-tiger felt or seen again; no doubt he got a fright and went straight off under the keel; at any rate the boat was alongside of the cook and Jack next minute, and picked 'em both up safe. Jack swore he heard the chain at the shark's snout rattle, as he was slueing round his head within half a fathom of old Dido, and just as he pounced upon the bloody devil's back-bone; the next moment it was clear water below his feet, and he saw the white bells rise from a lump of green going down under the ship's bends, as large as the gig, with its belly glancing like silver. If so, I daresay the cook's legs would have stuck on his own hook before they were swallowed; but, anyhow, the old nigger was ready to believe in the devil as long as he lived. The whole matter gave poor Dido a shake he never got the better of; at the end of the