After a little time, I noticed two small fishes coming up towards the bait and poking their pointed noses into it as if taking observations, and I called Captain Miles's attention to them. "Oh, that's a good sign," said he. "Those are pilot-fish, which always accompany his majesty Mr Shark in the way of _aides-de-camp_, as you call those smart gentlemen in gay uniforms who are usually seen prancing about the general at a review of troops ashore. Whenever you see the little chaps, the shark himself is never far off, for they precede him as his scouts to warn him of danger as well as tell him if there's anything worth grabbing in the offing. If it wasn't for them I believe he'd fare rather badly, as his own sight is bad--fortunately for poor fellows that fall in the water in the way Jackson did t'other day!" "But, captain," I remarked, "they must be very bad guides if they do not tell the shark about the hook." "Aye," he replied; "something like `the blind leading the blind,' eh? Still, you know Moggridge has taken care that the bait carefully conceals the snare within, and the pilot-fish are none the wiser. See them now!" As I watched, I noticed first one and then the other of the little fish smell at the piece of pork, making their observations apparently, after which they swam back to the side of the shark, where they remained for a moment on either side of his snout, as if they were making their report upon the tempting object and giving their master all particulars. Then the shark, with a fluke of his tail, also advanced closer to the bait, which just then, by a twist of the rope attached to it, the boatswain jerked away. This was enough for Master Shark, who, thinking he was going to lose the coveted morsel, at once sheered alongside of it, turning over on his back and opening his terrible-looking cavern of a mouth in the same way I had seen him do when he tried to catch poor Jackson. The recollection of that made me shudder all over! The next moment the monster had bolted both bait and hook, as well as a couple of feet of the chain; but when he turned to sheer off again he was "brought up with a round turn," as sailors say, by the rope tightening suddenly, the jerk almost making him turn a somersault in the water. He was not altogether captured yet, however, and his struggles to get free were tremendous. Really, his jaws must have been pretty tough to have not given way under the furious flings and writhings he made to release himself; for the strong half-inch manilla rope that held him tethered was stretched like a fiddle-string, its strands all quivering with the strain upon it. First to one side of the ship and then to the other the brute bounded in turns, making the sea boil around him like a whirlpool, until finally, after half an hour's fight of it, he gave in and lay quiet, although not dead yet by any means.