se already described. These
were the sharks! Looking at them, as they swam around the raft,--their
eyes glaring upon those who occupied it,--one could not have helped
thinking that they comprehended what was going on,--that they were
conscious of a deed of violence about to be enacted,--and were waiting
for some contingency that might turn up in their favour!

Whatever the crisis was to be, neither the spectators _in_ the sea, nor
those _upon_ it, would have long to wait for the crisis. Two men,
mutually enraged, standing in front of each other, armed with naked
knives; each desperately desirous of killing the other,--with no one to
keep them apart, but a score of spectators to encourage them in their
intent of reciprocal destruction,--were not likely to be long in coming
to the end of the affair. It was not a question of swords, where
skilful fencing may protract a combat to an indefinite period of time;
nor of pistols, where unskilful shooting may equally retard the result.
The combatants knew that, on closing within arms' length, one or other
must receive a wound that might in a moment prove mortal.

It was this thought that--for some minutes after their squaring up to
each other--had influenced them to keep at a wary distance.

The cries of their companions began to assume an altered tone. Mingled
with shouts of exhortation could be heard taunts and jeers,--several
voices proclaiming that the "two bullies were afraid of each other."

"Go in, Le Gros! give him the knife!" cried the partisans of the
Frenchman.

"Come, Larry! lay on to him!" shouted the backers of his antagonist.

"Bear a hand, both of you! go it like men!" vociferated the voice of
some one, who did not seem particularly affected to the side of either.

These off-hand counsels, spoken in a varied vocabulary of tongues,
seemed to produce the desired effect. As the last of them pealed over
the heads of the spectators, the combatants rushed towards each other,--
as they closed inflicting a mutual stab. But the blade of each was met
by the left arm of his antagonist, thrown out to ward off the strokes
and they separated again without either having received further injury
than a flesh wound, that in no way disabled them. It appeared, however,
to produce an irritation, which rendered both of them less careful of
consequences: for in an instant after they closed again,--the spectators
accompanying their collision with shouts of encouragement.