hands.

"Gone?" cried Jack with a sigh of relief.

"Yes, and it's a good proof of the quality of the lines. They are
wonderfully strong to hold out so long. Cut into my hands pretty well."

"Come and give me a hand, Jack," cried the doctor.

The boy moved unwillingly, but he reached over and took hold, half
expecting to see a head come out of the water, a pair of menacing jaws
open close to his hands, and a pair of fierce eyes give him a
questioning look as to what he was doing to a peaceable inhabitant of
the deep. But he had hardly felt the throbbing drag at the end of a
hundred yards of line when the shark dived, and he and the doctor sank
back in the boat, whose steady progress through the water was checked.

"How do you like fishing?" said the doctor merrily.

"But I don't quite understand," said Jack. "Oh, it's easy enough, boy,"
cried the doctor, smiling; "we threw out little fish or imitations.
Bigger ones took them. Then a pair of monsters seized the bigger ones
and began to tow the boat; and if we had held on much longer we should
have had a pair as big as the yacht take our monsters, and end by
swallowing us, boat and all."

"But you don't think they were sea serpents?" said Jack, whose face
looked a little sallow.

"Oh no," said the mate. "Sharks without doubt. Look here, the twisted
wire is regularly cut through, as if by a pair of shears," he continued,
as he held up the end of the line he had drawn in. "How is yours?"

"Haven't got the end yet," said the doctor, who was hauling away. "Here
we are," he cried; "mine's broken where the snood joins on. What's to
be done now?"

"Put on fresh baits," said Jack sharply; and Edward reached for the
basket.

The mate and the doctor exchanged glances. "Very well," said the
latter; "but I expect it only means another fight like the last. Eh,
Bartlett?"

"I'm afraid so. The sharks are evidently following this great shoal to
pick up a helpless one now and then."

"But it's so disappointing," said Jack. "I wanted to see what we had
caught, and take them aboard for dinner."

"Yes, it's disappointing," said the doctor. "What do you think they
were that we had hold of--there in the shoal?"

"They look to me like some kind of sea perch," said the mate, "something
like the bass one gets down in Cornwall."

"Seem like it from their playing about," said the doctor, and drawing
the basket toward him, he proceeded to fit on another artificial