e top of the bulwarks to the main-
shrouds, and clambering out on his hands and knees along these, made his
way to where a long wooden handspike, that had been used for heaving
round the windlass, was floating under the rigging.

Picking up this and cutting off a good length of the topsail halliards,
he came back to where we all were, and proceeded to make a running noose
at the end of the rope.

"What are you going to do?" asked Captain Miles, not quite certain yet
of Jackson's sanity.

"I'm going to try to get one of the sharks to come close enough to give
him a taste of this handspike," said the stalwart young fellow, drawing
himself up to his full height, and looking round with a determined
expression on his face that I had never seen there before. "If I can
only get them all to come to the inside of the ship, I shall do for one
or two, I know."

"Golly, Massa Jackson, me help you wid um knife," exclaimed Jake,
entering with much animation in the other's project. "S'pose we fiss
for um wid sumfin', so as make um swim roun' t'oder side ob ship, hey?"

"That's a good idea," said Captain Miles, and he offered Jake his hat to
use as a bait, but the darkey shook his head at this.

"No, tankee, Mass' Cap'en, I'se got sumfin' better nor dat," he
exclaimed, pulling off the guernsey with which he had sheltered me the
first night we were exposed on the wreck. "Dis do ebber so much
betterer. Shark smell um, an' tink he hab dis niggah, yah, yah!"

As he laughed, he tied one end of a bit of the signal halliards, which
he had used to lash himself to the rigging, to the guernsey, lowering it
down to a short distance above the surface of the water, where he kept
it dangling.

One of the sharks rose towards it, another coming up soon after in its
train; and then Jake kept continually shifting the rope round that
portion of the taffrail of the poop which was above the sea, the sharks
following in chase of the deceptive bait until he had lured them round
to the inside part of the ship to join the one who was still on sentry
there.

This was just what Jackson wanted; so he now proceeded to climb out
along the mizzen rigging until he reached the point where the sea lapped
it, when he arranged his running noose underneath, tying the loose end
of the rope to the shrouds in a double hitch.

Jake then manoeuvred the baited line nearer to where the second mate had
stationed himself, climbing out into the mizzen rigging too; w