as they approached the canoe.

"Look at the brutes," he said, pointing. "Half-a-dozen of them under
her."

Jack looked at him in horror.

"There, you can see their dusky bodies against the sand."

"I thought they all escaped by swimming and hanging on to her," he said
a little huskily.

"Escaped by swimming?" replied the captain wonderingly. "What are you
talking about?"

"The savages."

"Oh!" cried the captain, bursting into a hearty laugh, to the boy's
great disgust, "I see. Well, I meant the savages too, but a different
sort. Look down there."

"I don't care to!" cried Jack hoarsely. "Perhaps it is cowardly; but I
don't want to satisfy a morbid curiosity by gazing down at the dead
bodies of my fellow-creatures."

"Rather fine language, young gentleman," said the captain, patting him
on the shoulder; "but I like the sentiment all the same, and I should
not have drawn your attention to them if it had been what you thought.
The bodies I mean are those of half-a-dozen sharks. There they are."

"Oh, I beg your pardon, Captain Bradleigh!" cried Jack. "How stupid of
me!"

"Nothing to ask pardon for, sir," said the captain, smiling. "See
them?--Hold hard, Lenny."

"Yes; quite plainly now. Six. How shadowy they look! Not very big
though, are they?"

"Plenty big enough to tear a man to pieces. Why, that one's a good nine
feet long, and there isn't one under six, I should say. But isn't it
strange how they seem to smell out danger? You know how they'll follow
a ship? Well, these brutes must have been following the canoes,
expecting to get something, and this one being wrecked, they're waiting
by it as if they were ready for a grab at some poor wretch."

"How horrible!"

"Ay, my lad, it is. I'm as bad as any of the sailors. Of course it's
the brutes' nature; but I feel a thorough satisfaction when one is
caught and killed; and if it was not that I don't want to have any
firing just now, I'd go back and make some kind of a dummy with a ship's
fender and some old clothes, and we'd pitch it overboard. It would
tempt them to come at it, and we'd put in ball-cartridge and try a bit
of shooting, and finish off this lot."

"I wish you would," cried Jack eagerly.

"Well, we'll see after breakfast."

Jack took up his gun and cocked it as he gazed down at the long, lithe
creatures lying perfectly motionless beneath the injured canoe.

"No, no; don't fire!"

"Not unless I'm obliged," said Jack,