e me, for suah! Dere he am
comin' up wid him long claw--dere he am--dere he am!"

We all rose up on the side of the bulwarks, as if with one accord,
looking in the direction to which Jake's trembling hand pointed, where,
between the meshes of the rigging away forward in front of the mainmast
we could dimly discern a long sinuous greenish-white body gradually
rising to the surface of the water that covered the lower part of the
deck.

The mysterious thing seemed to make after the negro, although no
apparent movement was perceptible, while its colour became more luminous
as it got nearer.

Jackson was closer than any of us to Jake; and, as he stood up in the
main-chains to help the negro up, he perceived what the object was that
had frightened him, for he could see down into the water clear of the
rigging, which somewhat hampered our view.

"Why, it's a shark!" he called out. "It is a big fellow too--larger
than the brute that nearly tackled me the other day."

"A shark, Massa Jackson, for true, hey?" said Jake, turning round to
assure himself of the fact; and, then, seeing his pursuer to be of no
supernatural origin, as he had supposed, but only one of the ordinary,
if ugly, denizens of the deep, his alarm disappeared instanter and he
burst into a fit of laughing--his African nature being as susceptible as
that of a child, his moods varying in a moment.

"Yah, yah," he roared, "me no 'fraid ob shark; I'se tink him ider one
duppy or de debbil, for suah, when um touch me on de shin-bone!"

"I'se tole you so, Jake," said Cuffee with great contempt. "You'se
nebber see duppy in de daylight. You'se only big fool to tink so."

"Berry well," rejoined the other, "you hab your 'pinion an' I hab mine!
If you was down dar in water jus' now, an' see dat long ting snouzle by
um leg, lookin' so white an' drefful, I guess you'se frit too!"

If Jake, however, was now pleased at seeing his fancied ghost turn out
to be a shark, this was more than we were. Captain Miles could hardly
conceal his chagrin.

"Confound the hideous brute!" he exclaimed. "He's the very last visitor
I cared to see. He will prevent any further attempt being made to get
that axe out of the fo'c's'le--if it is there, as Adze says."

"It's theer sure enough, cap'en," put in the carpenter hearing this
remark. "I wish I could only swim and I'd precious soon fetch it
myself!"

"All right, Adze, I don't doubt your word," said the captain
apologetical