“That is a proof that we are not far from the reef, at least,” cried Mulford, willing to encourage those around him all he could, and really much relieved at finding himself so near even this isolated fragment of terra firma. “This fact is the next encouraging thing to finding ourselves near the boat, or to falling in with a sail.” “Ay, ay,” said Jack, gloomily; “boat or no boat, 't will make no great matter of difference now. There's customers that'll be sartain to take all the grists you can send to their mill.” “What things are those glancing about the vessel?” cried Rose, almost in the same breath; “those dark, sharp-looking sticks--see, there are five or six of them! and they move as if fastened to something under the water that pulls them about.” “Them's the customers I mean, Miss Rose,” answered Jack, in the same strain as that in which he had first spoken; “they're the same thing at sea as lawyers be ashore, and seem made to live on other folks. Them's sharks.” “And yonder is truly the boat!” added Mulford, with a sigh that almost amounted to a groan. The light had, by this time, so far returned as to enable the party not only to see the fins of half a dozen sharks, which were already prowling about the wreck, the almost necessary consequence of their proximity to a reef in that latitude, but actually to discern the boat drifting down toward them, at a distance that promised to carry it past, within the reach of Mulford's powers of swimming, though not as near as he could have wished, even under more favourable circumstances. Had their extremity been greater, or had Rose begun to suffer from hunger or thirst, Mulford might have attempted the experiment of endeavoring to regain the boat, though the chances of death by means of the sharks would be more than equal to those of escape; but still fresh, and not yet feeling even the heat of the sun of that low latitude, he was not quite goaded into such an act of desperation. All that remained for the party, therefore, was to sit on the keel of the wreck, and gaze with longing eyes at a little object floating past, which, once at their command, might so readily be made to save them from a fate that already began to appear terrible in the perspective. Near an hour was thus consumed, ere the boat was about half a mile to leeward; during which scarcely an eye was turned from it for one instant, or a word was spoken. “It is beyond my reach now,” Mulford at length exclaimed, sighing heavily, like one who became conscious of some great and irretrievable loss. “Were there no sharks, I could hardly venture to attempt swimming so far, with the boat drifting from me at the same time.” “I should never consent to let you make the trial, Harry,” murmured Rose, “though it were only half as far.” Another pause succeeded.