Glancing aloft, and then all round the horizon, he observed that it had fallen a flat calm, and that moreover there was no immediate prospect of a breeze. The sky was a clear deep blue in the zenith, merging by imperceptible gradations into a delicate warm grey at the horizon. The water was absolutely without a ripple, there was not so much as the faintest suggestion of a "cat's-paw" on all its glassy surface; and save for the long sluggish sweep and heave of the swell which, as it undulated past the ship, caught and reflected the varying tints of the sky, it would have been difficult to detect the presence of water at all at a distance of more than a few yards from the ship. The _Aurora_ was still rolling sluggishly on the sleepy swell; her dazzling white canvas flapping and the slings and trusses of the yards creaking with the roll; the men, rendered languid by the heat, were making such show as they were able of being busy on various odd jobs about the decks or aloft; and the man at the wheel had lashed it and was leaning upon it more than half-asleep. Ritson, apparently for want of something better to do, was seated on the main-topmast cross-trees, with the ship's telescope in his hand, scrutinising the motions of the distant schooner, whose tiny "royal" was now visible from the deck, gleaming white as snow on the extreme verge of the horizon. Noting all these things at a glance, George turned to saunter aft, thinking that on such a perfectly calm day, and with such still water, he might, by leaning well out over the taffrail, get a glimpse of the ship's bottom and see whether it had fouled at all, or whether the copper showed any signs of wrinkling. Arrived at the taffrail, he leaned well out over it, and peered down into the water. The first thing which attracted his notice was the deep, pure, beautiful ultramarine tint of the water, as he gazed far down into its unfathomable depths; the next was, the presence of a long greyish-brown object under the ship's counter, which had escaped his notice at first in consequence of its being in the deepest shadow of the hull. A moment sufficed to satisfy him that it was a huge shark; and as the creature caught sight of him, and with a barely perceptible movement of its fins, backed out a foot or two from under the ship, as if in preparation to make a dart at him in case he should fall into the water, George shuddered at the thought of what might have been his or Walford's fate, had the monster been in the neighbourhood of the ship a few hours earlier. Sliding his body gently inboard again, Leicester turned to the dozing helmsman, and exclaimed-- "Here, you Ned; rouse up, man. There's a big shark under the counter, so get out the shark-hook, ask the cook for a piece of good fat pork, and muster the watch aft in readiness to haul him inboard, in case we can coax him into swallowing the bait." CHAPTER ELEVEN. A SUSPICIOUS SAIL.