Noel was officer of the watch, while Granby happened to be among the youngsters, enjoying the fun of watching and angling for the great brutes beneath just as much as the younger officers. Noel, walking up and down the deck, being on duty, took but little notice of the group of laughing and chattering youngsters. He strolled up the deck and down again, now taking a look at the sharks for a moment, now pausing to issue some order to one or other of the crew lazily busy over the varied duties that fall to Jack at sea in order to keep him employed and the ship clean and smart.
Suddenly a terrible thing happened.
A youngster, nominally busy upon a yardarm, but actually too interested in watching what went on below in the matter of the shark-feeding, suddenly lost his hold, in the excitement of gazing down, and fell from his perch.
It so happened that Granby was at that moment leaning dangerously over the side of the ship endeavouring to entice a certain shark to take the bait he dangled in front of it, and the youngster, in falling, struck Granby so violently upon the neck that he too lost his hold and fell with the lad into the sea.
A loud, inarticulate cry arose from all who saw the occurrence.
"Man overboard!" shrieked some, and "A boat!" cried others. "Cutter"s crew--quick, for Heaven"s sake!"
Noel heard and ran to the side of the ship just in time to see Granby and the lad fall together, with a great splash, in front of the huge shark which Granby had angled for but a moment before.
Noel instantly seized the great knife which had been used by the anglers for cutting their bait.
"Out of the way there!" he shouted, elbowing aside the horrified crowd that looked down, shouting, each one, in more or less articulate horror--"out of the way! Heave a rope out, some of you, and shy things into the water to make a splash."
The concluding words of the sentence were spoken as Noel shot, head downwards, through the air. He cleft the water in a beautiful header, rising just in time to see Granby lift the lad towards the rope which willing hands above quickly dangled ready for him.
The bellowing youth laid hold of the rope, and swarmed up with amazing quickness. He was safe.
Granby was about to follow his example, when he suddenly caught sight of Noel. Up to this moment he had not known that his brother had plunged to his a.s.sistance.
Noel had dived very carefully. He had seen the huge shark disappear, probably startled, as the two human bodies fell with a great splash before its very nose; then he saw it slowly gliding forward once more, and had dived so as to emerge, if possible, at its shoulder, in order to plunge his knife into the brute"s eye and blind him.
The shark had set its heart upon Granby, it appeared, for it turned slightly towards him, with the result that Noel rose to the surface, brushing against its very side, at which he viciously jabbed his knife, under water, without much effect, excepting to attract the brute towards himself. Then, getting his head out of the water, Noel placed his left arm over the shark"s head, and made several stabs at the brute"s eye with his right, which held the knife. But the position was awkward, and his blows missed their mark, though they seemed to rouse the fighting instincts of the huge fish, which lashed the water with its tail, and snapped viciously at its adversary, though clumsily, for it was in a bad position for taking its prey.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Noel placed his left arm over the shark"s head._"
Page 36.]
Meanwhile--for all this occupied but an instant of time--Granby had slipped back into the water, and swam behind his brother.
"Dive, Noel! Dive and rip up the beast from underneath!" he cried. These were the first words he had addressed to his brother for ten years.
"Keep out of his way then," said Noel, and dived.
But the shark would not be denied, for even as Noel dived and ripped a long slit that let the savage life out of it, the great brute made a last snap in Granby"s direction, and with a cry Granby grew suddenly pale, and sank.
But help was at hand now. The cutter"s crew had floated their boat with marvellous quickness, and were even now approaching, splashing with their oars in order to frighten away other sharks, of which there were many around.
Noel rose to the surface, having laid hold of Granby as he came; and as the dead shark sank, the two plucky officers were a.s.sisted into the boat. Granby was unconscious; and it was seen, to the horror of all present, that his right hand had been bitten clean off at the wrist.
For some days the ship"s doctor almost despaired of saving the gallant fellow"s life. The whole crew hung with dread and excitement upon his hourly report. Noel was frantic with anxiety. But the wounded man, like Noel, had been blessed with a good const.i.tution; and, thanks to the doctor"s skill and attention, to Noel"s devotion, and to his own splendid strength, Granby gradually beat back oncoming death, and took a new lease of life, maimed, indeed, for life, but healed and recovered.
He was very weak and quite unable to speak for many days and even weeks; but when at last he was able and allowed to attempt it, he asked to see Noel.
"All right," said the doctor; "you"re right to thank him, my boy, for, by all that"s heroic, he did a fine thing in saving you. But don"t excite yourself; that"s all I ask."
When Noel entered, Granby beckoned him nearer.
"I"m going to speak at last," he said, smiling. "It"s time I did, isn"t it? But I"m afraid I can"t shake hands, dear old man. I vowed I wouldn"t, so long as I had a right hand. Well, now I haven"t one. I suppose it"s my punishment, and I"m sure I deserve it. Will you forgive me, Noel?"
"I"ve nothing to forgive," said Noel with a sob. "And as for that race--"
"Yes--I _did_ win that race, you know, Noel. Nearly every one thought so."
"I really and honestly believe you did, dear old Granby," said Noel, sobbing quite freely; "and I believe I was utterly wrong. But I was so fond of you, old chap, that I was afraid of cheating the other fellow."
"Thanks! thanks!" said Granby. "Oh, I am so happy--and so sleepy!"
Then the doctor came and turned Noel out; but Noel was happier that night than he had been for ten long years.
TWO HEROES.
The two young counts, Peter and Paul Selsky, were as st.u.r.dy a pair of boys as you"d find in all Russia, and as fond of outdoor life and outdoor sports as though they were very Britons. For this circ.u.mstance they were largely indebted to their tutor, a young graduate of Oxford, Frank Thirlstone, who had lived with them since the death of their father, three years ago, and had taught them, besides the English language and a smattering of cla.s.sical lore, something more than the elements of cricket and of golf and other games dear to the heart of every British youth. Peter and Paul were now respectively seventeen and sixteen years old, and the period of their tutelage by Thirlstone was drawing to a close; for both must shortly enter the Lyceum at St.
Petersburg, in preparation for the usual career of young aristocrats in their country, and Thirlstone would return to England.
It was winter, and most aristocratic land-owners had long since left their country seats for their warmer mansions in town; but it was not the custom of the Selskys to leave their beloved outdoor avocations for the cooped-up amus.e.m.e.nts of the metropolis for any long period at a time, and they would spend their Christmastide and the New Year at the manor house as usual.
They were the more inclined to do so because their nearest neighbours, old General Ootin and his daughter Vera, intended to do the same. Since the death of his wife, the general had never cared to live in St.
Petersburg, preferring to pa.s.s his time in the seclusion of country life with his adored and certainly most charming daughter. Old Ootin was a fine sportsman, devoted to every form of hunting and shooting, and nothing pleased the old man so much as to wander, gun in hand, among his ancestral pine trees, accompanied by pretty Vera. He was an adept in all matters of tracking, and had taught young Peter and Paul and their English tutor many a "wrinkle" in the art of bear-hunting, wolf-ringing, and even of calling the lynx and other animals from an ambush--one of the most difficult and exciting of all forms of sport.
Scarcely a week pa.s.sed even in winter time without some sporting enterprise planned and undertaken by the four men (to dignify Paul and Peter by that t.i.tle, scarcely yet due them by the operation of time); and when there was a battue or ambush-shooting, Vera nearly always formed one of the party as a spectator. When the sport included long runs upon the snowshoes in pursuit of lynx or elk, the girl, though no mean performer on snowshoes, preferred to leave the hunt to the sterner s.e.x.
One evening the young counts, with Frank Thirlstone, drove over to the general"s to dinner, as they frequently did, in order to plan a campaign for the following day. To their astonishment the old servant in the hall informed them that "his excellence" was in bed ill, but that his young mistress was up and ready to receive them.
Hurrying upstairs to learn what ailed their old friend, the three young men found Vera greatly excited, and anxious to tell them the whole story, which was sufficiently exciting, and may be told in her own words.
"Father and I were wandering in the woods," she began. "He carried a gun with small shot, for I had asked him to shoot a brace of tree partridges or so for the house. We heard one whistle in the distance--you know how sharp father"s ears are for that kind of sound--and stood to listen. We stood in the midst of a tangle of fallen pine trees--what the peasants call a _lom_. Suddenly, within five yards of us, there was a startling upheaval of snow and pine twigs, and with a deafening roar a big she-bear rushed straight out at us. We had been standing unconsciously within a few paces of her winter lair, where father says she probably has a family of cubs, or she would have been asleep.
"Father cried out to me to run for my life, which I did, skating away on my snowshoes at my very best speed. I heard my father fire a shot, but did not turn round for fear of running into a tree stump and tripping up.
"Then my father shouted again, and to my horror I found that the bear was in full pursuit of me, apparently none the worse for the charge of small shot.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_I found that the bear was in full pursuit of me._"
Page 47.]
"I could scarcely think for horror. I was some thirty yards ahead; but, since the snow was fairly hard, I knew the beast would soon catch me, and if she did I had nothing but a small Circa.s.sian dagger with a silver handle--the one that Mr. Thirlstone gave me," Vera added with a glance at the Oxonian and a slight blush, "on my birthday. Then I thought I would try to reach a patch of soft snow which I remembered to have pa.s.sed over a few minutes before, and in that direction I now turned my shoes. I could hear poor father shouting frantically after me, but it was impossible to distinguish what he said. I know now that he wished me to lead the bear round in a curve, so that he might shoot her. But I succeeded in reaching the soft snow, and there my pursuer floundered, while I sped quickly on and gained some yards upon her. This also enabled my father to come up closer to the bear, and as he was now nearer to her than I was, and all the noise came from him, she turned round and charged back at father.
"Father fired when she was close, but his charge flew like a bullet, and he missed her. Apparently, however, the shot pa.s.sed near enough to the brute to frighten her into discretion; for, having knocked poor father backwards, and run right over him, she took no further notice of him, and retired to her _berloga_ [lair]. Father was much shaken, but not seriously hurt; he will be quite well after a day or two of resting in bed."
When Paul had an opportunity of speaking privately to Vera, he was very eloquent in his expressions of grat.i.tude for her deliverance from danger. "Ah-rr!" he ended, "the brute; she shall die to-morrow, Vera, I swear it, for frightening you."
"Still more for hurting poor father, I hope," she laughed; "but be careful, Paul, for she is savage."