oggridge told me how the poor fellow escaped from the very
jaws of death.

Jackson, he said, when he became aware of being pursued by the
bloodthirsty monster, instead of losing his presence of mind, as most
men would have done under the circumstances, remained perfectly calm and
collected, having once before had an encounter with a shark in his
native element.

He swam on steadily towards the ship, apparently unmindful of his enemy;
but, he carefully kept his weather eye opened, and when he saw the brute
going to turn on his back in order to make a snatch at him, he at once
dived under the shark's body, thus circumventing his attack. Before the
monster could recover itself and make a fresh onslaught, Moggridge said,
the chief mate caught it a pretty tidy whack over the head with a boat-
hook, while Jackson was hauled into the gig at the same time by the
other men.

It was a wonderful escape, however, and nothing else was talked of on
board for days after.

Strange to say, too, the shark, as if determined not to be easily balked
of its prey, followed the ship steadily; and this fact, of course, kept
the incident fresh in our minds, even if we had been at all inclined to
forget it, the hideous creature's bottle-like fin ever perceptible in
our wake being a constant reminder!

"He's bound to hab somebody for suah," said the captain's mulatto
steward Harry, who by the way was the person who had given out that
agonised shriek which I had fancied to be poor Jackson's death knell.
"Shark nebber follow ship for nuffin'!"

"No," observed Captain Miles grimly; "this beggar sha'n't at all events,
if I know it!" and he paced up and down the poop, as if revolving the
matter in his mind.

This was the third day after the affair had happened, and the captain
was quite incensed at the shark's pertinacity; for, morning, noon, and
night, whenever we logged over the side, there could be seen the sea-
pirate's long sinewy body, floating under our stern and always keeping
pace with the ship whether she was going fast or slow--although, as we
had little or no wind, the latter was generally the case.

"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?"

"Perh