bottom, and he was not above
six feet off. So I took a header right for him, whipping out my sheath-
knife as I jumped; and luckily he turned upon me sharp enough to give
little May a chance, but not sharp enough to prevent my driving my knife
into him up to the hilt. Then I got hold of him somewhere--I think it
was one of his fins--and dug and slashed at him until I was out of
breath, when I was obliged to let go and come to the surface. The shark
sheered off, seeming to have had enough of it, but in going he gave me a
blow with his tail across the leg and I felt it snap like a pipe-stem."

"And, instead of making for the raft, you swam at once to May, thinking
of her safety rather than of the pain you were suffering," said the
skipper. "Bob, you are a hero, if ever there was one. This is the
second time you have saved my child from certain death; and I shall
never forget my obligations to you, though God alone knows whether I
shall ever have an opportunity to repay them."

"I say, mister, I wish you wouldn't have quite so much to say about
_God_; it makes a chap feel uncomfortable," growled Dickinson.

"Does it?" said Captain Staunton. "How is that? I thought none of you
people believed in the existence of such a Being."

"I can't answer for others," sullenly returned Dickinson, "but I know
_I_ believe; I wish I didn't. I've tried my hardest to forget all about
God, and to persuade myself that there ain't no such Person, but I can't
manage it. The remembrance of my poor old mother's teaching sticks to
me in spite of all I can do. I've tried," he continued with growing
passion, "to drive it all out of my head by sheer deviltry and
wickedness; I've done worse things than e'er another man on this here
island, hain't I, mates?"--to his fellow-oarsmen.

"Ay ay, Bill, you have."

"You're a reg'lar devil sometimes."

"A real out-and-outer, and no mistake," were the confirmatory replies.

"Yes," Dickinson continued, "and yet I _can't_ forget it; I _can't_
persuade myself; and the more I try the worse I feel about it, and I
don't care who hears me say so."

"Well, you _seem_ to be in earnest in what you say, Dickinson; but I
really cannot believe you _are_. No man who really believed in the
existence of a God of Justice would continue to live a life of sin and
defiance," said the skipper.

"Wouldn't he?" fiercely retorted the boatswain's mate. "Supposin' he'd
done what I've done and lived the life I've l