and advancing toward the dead
body, the captain and carpenter, as agreed upon, laid hold of and raised
it up in their arms. Even weak as both were, it was not much of a lift
to them. It was not a corpse, only a skeleton, with the skin still
adhering, and drawn tightly over the bones.

Resting it upon the gunwale of the boat, they made a moment's pause,
their eyes turned heavenward, as if mentally repeating a prayer.

The Irishman, a devout believer in the efficacy of outward observances,
with one hand detached from the corpse, made the sign of the cross.

Then was the body again raised between them, held at arm's length
outward, and tenderly lowered down upon the water.

There was no plunge, only a tiny plashing, as if a chair, or some other
piece of light wood-work, had been dropped gently upon the surface of
the sea. But slight as was the sound, it produced an effect, startling
as instantaneous. The sailor, whose dead comrade was thus being
consigned to the deep, as it were, surreptitiously, all at once sprang
to his feet, sending forth a shriek that rang far over the tranquil
water. With one bound, causing the pinnace to heel fearfully over, he
placed himself by the side over which the corpse had been lowered, and
stood with arms upraised, as if intending to plunge after it.

The sight underneath should have awed him. The dead body was slowly,
gradually sinking, its garb of dark blue Guernsey shirt becoming lighter
blue as it went deeper down in the cerulean water; while fast advancing
to meet it, as if coming up from the darkest depths of the ocean, was a
creature of monstrous shape, the very type of a monster. It was the
hideous hammer-headed shark, the dreaded _zygaena_ of the Celebes Sea.

With a pair of enormous eyes glaring sullenly out from two immense
cheek-like protuberances, giving to its head that singular sledge-hammer
appearance whence it has its name, it advanced directly toward the
slow-descending corpse, itself, however, moving so rapidly that the
spectators above had scarce taken in the outlines of its horrid form,
when this was no longer visible. It was hidden in what appeared a
shower of bluish pearls suddenly projected underneath the water, and
enveloping both the dead body of the sailor and the living form of the
shark. Through the dimness could be distinguished gleams of a pale
phosphoric sheen like lightning flashes through a sky cloud; and soon
after froth and bubbles rose efferv