"I thought they all escaped by swimming and hanging on to her," he said a little huskily. "Escaped by swimming?" replied the captain wonderingly. "What are you talking about?" "The savages." "Oh!" cried the captain, bursting into a hearty laugh, to the boy's great disgust, "I see. Well, I meant the savages too, but a different sort. Look down there." "I don't care to!" cried Jack hoarsely. "Perhaps it is cowardly; but I don't want to satisfy a morbid curiosity by gazing down at the dead bodies of my fellow-creatures." "Rather fine language, young gentleman," said the captain, patting him on the shoulder; "but I like the sentiment all the same, and I should not have drawn your attention to them if it had been what you thought. The bodies I mean are those of half-a-dozen sharks. There they are." "Oh, I beg your pardon, Captain Bradleigh!" cried Jack. "How stupid of me!" "Nothing to ask pardon for, sir," said the captain, smiling. "See them?--Hold hard, Lenny." "Yes; quite plainly now. Six. How shadowy they look! Not very big though, are they?" "Plenty big enough to tear a man to pieces. Why, that one's a good nine feet long, and there isn't one under six, I should say. But isn't it strange how they seem to smell out danger? You know how they'll follow a ship? Well, these brutes must have been following the canoes, expecting to get something, and this one being wrecked, they're waiting by it as if they were ready for a grab at some poor wretch." "How horrible!" "Ay, my lad, it is. I'm as bad as any of the sailors. Of course it's the brutes' nature; but I feel a thorough satisfaction when one is caught and killed; and if it was not that I don't want to have any firing just now, I'd go back and make some kind of a dummy with a ship's fender and some old clothes, and we'd pitch it overboard. It would tempt them to come at it, and we'd put in ball-cartridge and try a bit of shooting, and finish off this lot." "I wish you would," cried Jack eagerly. "Well, we'll see after breakfast." Jack took up his gun and cocked it as he gazed down at the long, lithe creatures lying perfectly motionless beneath the injured canoe. "No, no; don't fire!" "Not unless I'm obliged," said Jack, who looked excited. "This boat is so small and slight, I thought that perhaps they might attack us." "Oh no; they will not do that. Scull round her bows, Lenny; I want to see where the cutter struck her." The man obeyed, and there about twenty feet from the prow, seen perfectly through the clear water, was a large gap where the cutter had acted up to her name, and gone right through the side, completely disabling the barbarian craft. "Ah, shows the strength of our boats," said the captain. "Fine canoe, too. Perhaps they'll come after her, and tow her away to mend her. Takes them too long to make such a canoe as that to give her up easily. Humph! a good sixty feet long. That must have been a fine tree before it was cut down."