"I fancy, Mr Marline," said the captain, soon after replying to Harry's rather frightened observation, the mulatto being very timid and of a cowardly nature, as the fact of his fainting when the cow invaded the cabin would readily tell--"I say, Mr Marline, I think it's time for us to give that joker down there a lesson, eh?" "Perhaps you'll find him too artful to take a hook, cap'en," answered the mate. "He seems to me an `old sojer,' from the look of him and the regularity of his movements. Just see him now looking up, as if listening to what we were saying!" "Well, we'll try him anyway," said Captain Miles, telling Moggridge to bring the shark hook aft, as he wished to attempt the capture of our unwelcome attendant. "Aye, aye, sir," replied the boatswain, going forwards and presently returning with a large steel hook, much about the same size as those they use in butchers' shops for hanging meat on. A piece of chain was attached to this by a swivel instead of rope or a line, which, although good enough for other fish, the saw-like teeth of the monster of the deep would quickly have bitten through. "Is the tackle all sound?" asked the captain. "Aye, aye, sir; sound enough to catch a whale," responded Moggridge, proceeding to bait the hook with a four-pound piece of salt pork which completely concealed the barbs; and then, a stout half-inch rope having been fastened on to the end of the chain, the whole apparatus was thrown overboard close to where the shark was patrolling the water under our stern. He sheered off a bit on hearing the splash; but afterwards soon swam up to where the baited hook was towing in our wake, smelling at it cautiously as if to see whether it was advisable for him to bolt the savoury morsel or not. Then, with a disdainful swish of his screw-like tail, he turned round in the water and resumed his station further astern, as if he saw through our attempt to entrap him, and despised it. "I thought so," said Mr Marline. "He's too old a bird to be caught by chaff. You won't hook him in a blue moon!" "Don't you be too cocksure of that," retorted Captain Miles. "Sharks, I have noticed, frequently resemble cats in the way they will nibble at a bait, and pretend they don't care about it, when all the while they are dying to gobble it down--just in the same manner as you'll observe pussy, if you offer her a nice bit of meat, will sniff and turn away her head as if rejecting the morsel with disdain, affecting to make you believe it beneath her notice, only the next moment to abstract it slily from your hand, glad enough to get it! You'll see presently, Mr Marline, that our friend there will go at the pork again, I'll bet anything." "All right, cap'en," replied Mr Marline. "I only hope, I'm sure, that your anticipation will prove correct;" but, from the sly quizzical smile on his face and the dry way in which he spoke, I don't think the mate believed in our hooking the ugly brute, all the same.