on at Wapping."

"And the Nereids?"

"Neruds!" (scratching his head.) "I harn't kept my eye on them small
craft. But I BELIEVE they are selling oysters in the port of Leith."

A light breeze carried them across the equator; but soon after they
got becalmed, and it was dreary work, and the ship rolled gently, but
continuously, and upset Lord Tadcaster's stomach again, and quenched his
manly spirit.

At last they were fortunate enough to catch the southeast trade, but it
was so languid at first that the ship barely moved through the water,
though they set every stitch, and studding sails alow and aloft, till
really she was acres of canvas.

While she was so creeping along, a man in the mizzentop noticed an
enormous shark gliding steadily in her wake. This may seem a small
incident, yet it ran through the ship like wildfire, and caused more or
less uneasiness in three hundred stout hearts; so near is every seaman
to death, and so strong the persuasion in their superstitious minds,
that a shark does not follow a ship pertinaciously without a prophetic
instinct of calamity.

Unfortunately, the quartermaster conveyed this idea to Lord Tadcaster,
and confirmed it by numerous examples to prove that there was always
death at hand when a shark followed the ship.

Thereupon Tadcaster took it into his head that he was under a relapse,
and the shark was waiting for his dead body: he got quite low-spirited.

Staines told Fitzroy. Fitzroy said, "Shark be hanged! I'll have him on
deck in half an hour." He got leave from the captain: a hook was
baited with a large piece of pork, and towed astern by a stout line,
experienced old hands attending to it by turns.

The shark came up leisurely, surveyed the bait, and, I apprehend,
ascertained the position of the hook. At all events, he turned quietly
on his back, sucked the bait off, and retired to enjoy it.

Every officer in the ship tried him in turn, but without success; for,
if they got ready for him, and, the moment he took the bait, jerked the
rope hard, in that case he opened his enormous mouth so wide that the
bait and hook came out clear. But, sooner or later, he always got the
bait, and left his captors the hook.

This went on for days, and his huge dorsal fin always in the ship's
wake.

Then Tadcaster, who had watched these experiments with hope, lost his
spirit and appetite.

Staines reasoned with him, but in vain. Somebody was to die; and,
although there were thr