Presently, Jackson and the mate mounted the side-ladder amidst a perfect ovation from the crew, all hands cheering like mad and pressing forwards to shake the fist of him whom they had never expected to see again. After this the gig was veered astern and hoisted up once more to the davits, and the _Josephine_, bearing round and filling her sails, again resumed her north-east course on the starboard tack. The job of making the port anchor snug inboard was completed later on, when the men had sobered down somewhat from the excitement which had reigned through the ship from the moment Jackson had first fallen overboard--it having been an awfully anxious time throughout his peril by drowning, his hairbreadth escape from the shark, and his ultimate rescue. Later on, Moggridge told me how the poor fellow escaped from the very jaws of death. Jackson, he said, when he became aware of being pursued by the bloodthirsty monster, instead of losing his presence of mind, as most men would have done under the circumstances, remained perfectly calm and collected, having once before had an encounter with a shark in his native element. He swam on steadily towards the ship, apparently unmindful of his enemy; but, he carefully kept his weather eye opened, and when he saw the brute going to turn on his back in order to make a snatch at him, he at once dived under the shark's body, thus circumventing his attack. Before the monster could recover itself and make a fresh onslaught, Moggridge said, the chief mate caught it a pretty tidy whack over the head with a boat- hook, while Jackson was hauled into the gig at the same time by the other men. It was a wonderful escape, however, and nothing else was talked of on board for days after. Strange to say, too, the shark, as if determined not to be easily balked of its prey, followed the ship steadily; and this fact, of course, kept the incident fresh in our minds, even if we had been at all inclined to forget it, the hideous creature's bottle-like fin ever perceptible in our wake being a constant reminder! "He's bound to hab somebody for suah," said the captain's mulatto steward Harry, who by the way was the person who had given out that agonised shriek which I had fancied to be poor Jackson's death knell. "Shark nebber follow ship for nuffin'!" "No," observed Captain Miles grimly; "this beggar sha'n't at all events, if I know it!" and he paced up and down the poop, as if revolving the matter in his mind. This was the third day after the affair had happened, and the captain was quite incensed at the shark's pertinacity; for, morning, noon, and night, whenever we logged over the side, there could be seen the sea- pirate's long sinewy body, floating under our stern and always keeping pace with the ship whether she was going fast or slow--although, as we had little or no wind, the latter was generally the case.