anticipation will prove correct;" but, from the sly quizzical smile
on his face and the dry way in which he spoke, I don't think the mate
believed in our hooking the ugly brute, all the same.

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 th