Shoving off to the full extent of the painter, Zuares stood for a moment in an attitude which showed his handsome, athletic, and tawny form to great advantage, and when the horrible shark came within six yards of the boat, rising at the same time so near to the surface that his gray body shone through the pea-green sea, as if scaled with gold and silver, a cry of terror burst from Ethel Basset, as Zuares plunged headlong into the water, within three feet of his jaws. Turning instantly, the shark shot towards his expected prey, who rose near his tail, and, on the shark turning again, dived once more beneath him, with a skill and courage he could only have acquired on the half-savage shores of his native country. All on deck beheld this strange and perilous game with breathless interest, and even the ruffianly crew were hushed into silence by a scene so unexpected. Thrice the ill-matched antagonists appeared on the surface, Zuares swimming with the hand he had at liberty, and keeping the other, with the coiled rope, behind him on his loins, the shark following, but warily, as if in doubt. Each time Zuares got breath he dived headlong down, and on the third time, the monster dived after him, so closely and so simultaneously, that not a doubt remained in the minds of those who lined the ship's gunwale that they had encountered below, and that the bubbles, now rising fast to the surface, would soon be tinged with blood. Even the swarthy visage and beetling brow of Pedro Barradas grew pale; and his present emotion found vent in a heavy curse. Ethel and Rose covered their faces, and sank down on the quarter-deck seat. Nance Folgate gazed steadily at the place where the shark and seaman had disappeared, and continued to utter a series of noisy outcries, and "Lor' a mussy me's!" Five, ten, fifteen, twenty seconds elapsed--they seemed an age; then suddenly the slack of the rope at the starboard fore-rigging was seen to tighten and pay out. "Tail on--tally on--yeo-heavo!" was now the cry, and a dozen pairs of strong hands were pulling at it, and meeting, apparently, with a resistance that threatened to snap the rope. At that moment, Zuares Barradas, panting, breathless and weary, rose to the surface at some distance, and swam leisurely towards the boat, while the shark--round the tail of which, and the small back fin that is close thereto, he had, in some fashion known best to himself, contrived to loop the rope tightly--was drawn, ignominiously and in great wrath, tail-foremost from his proper element. A hurrah, rather varying in its cadence, as it did not come from British throats, greeted the monster's appearance as he floundered alongside, with his head downwards, and his awful jaws rasping and scraping in impotent fury against the ship's outer sheathing.