turning over beneath it; the glint of a ravening eye;
the gap of a frightful month, armed with its bristling rows of pointed
teeth. The sea boiled and babbled with the rush of the hideous beasts.
Scarcely a minute went by without bringing with it the shock of their
onslaught. And the ship was passing--passing.

Then both these castaways, lifting up their voices, sent up a long, loud
ringing shout. But what avail was that in the great immensity of space?
Why, the clanging of the engines, even the chatter of the passengers on
board the passing vessel, would be enough to drown it.

But the cry on Mona's part ended in a wild, quavering shriek of terror.
There was a shock greater than any that had hitherto occurred, and a
most horrible crunch of something. The hatch rocked terribly, trembling
upon the very verge of capsizal. A huge shark had risen, and turning
over had seized a portion of Mona's robe which trailed out beyond the
edge, at the same time crunching splinters out of the hard wood; and it
was the lash of his tail as he discovered the empty nature of his find,
and sounded again into the depths, which had come so near capsizing the
hatch. Well indeed might Mona scream and nearly lose her mind with
horror, as she realised what would have happened but for her being
secured to the ring-bolt. Nature would bear no more. She was half
fainting.

Her companion saw it all too; realised what had happened as thoroughly
as she did; more, he realised what would happen, failing one
alternative. With the rapidity of mind which was characteristic of him,
that alternative had already presented itself, and it was a ghastly one.
This was it. _One of they two must abandon the hatch, abandon it
altogether_.

The quiet, easy death of the deep waters, the death by drowning, he
would have welcomed, did they but share it together. But now? The
picture of her, rent limb from limb by these tigers of the sea! Horror!
That put another face on the affair. The ship was already passing.
With two on the hatch, the latter was submerged, and their heads
presented no point of attraction. But with only one upon it, it would
float flush with the surface, and its dark, oblong shape would stand a
far greater chance of being sighted from the passing steamer. Further,
it would be almost secure from capsizing.

"Kiss me, Mona! Mine in death!"

They lay close together on the hatch. Shuddering, shrinking still with
the horror of that l