The fishing expedition consisted of two boat-loads.
To wit, the pinnace and the cutter.
In the former were Jefferson, d.i.c.k Harvey and four sailors.
In the cutter were young Jack, Harry Girdwood, Mr. Mole, Joe Basalt, Sam Mason, and Jack Tiller.
"Now Jack," said Mr. Mole, settling himself comfortably at the rudder lines; "and you too, my dear Harry, you know, of course, we are going shark-fishing. You understand what that is?"
"I know what a shark is, if you mean that," answered young Jack.
"Rather," said Harry, with a shudder at old recollections "we had a white one after us once."
"A white shark!" said Mr. Mole, beaming upon the boat"s crew generally.
"_Squalus Carcharias,_ the worst of the family."
"They aren"t got no families, axing your pardon, Mr. Mole, sir," said Joe Basalt, "for they eats their own mothers and fathers and children likewise."
"Why, Bill Longbow told me a yarn once, your honour," said Sam Mason, "about a white shark. I mean," he added, nodding at Mr. Mole respectfully, "a squally c.o.c.kylorium--a blessed rum name for a shark-- as devoured all his family for dinner, supped off a Sunday school out for a pleasure-trip in a steamboat, and was a-goin" to wind up with a meal off his own blessed self, when his dexter fin stuck in his swaller, and he brought hisself up ag"in."
A general laugh greeted this sally.
So boisterous was their mirth, that it caught the occupants of the other boat.
"That"s Sam Mason at one of his Billy Longbow"s yarns," cried a sailor in the pinnace.
"So you had a white shark after you in the water," said Mr. Mole.
"Rather unpleasant that."
"It was indeed unpleasant at such close quarters," said Harry Girdwood.
"Very close?" demanded Mr. Mole.
"Not further off than--"
"Than that squally c.o.c.kylorium is from you now, your honour," cried Sam Mason, pointing behind Mole.
The old gentleman looked quickly behind them, and there, paddling about the stern, was a monstrous white shark.
Mr. Mole slid off his seat to the bottom of the boat with wonderful celerity.
"Don"t like the look of him?" said young Jack.
"Ho! I"ll tackle him presently, but I--I slipped down," said Mr. Mole.
"So I see, sir."
"And I mean to show you some novel sport in the way of shark-fishing,"
said the old gentleman.
"You?"
"Yes."
He had brought a large hamper with him, which he now proceeded to unpack, the occupants of the boat looking on with great interest in the business.
"Billy Longbow told me a yarn once," said the irrepressible Sam Mason, "about a wooden-legged n.i.g.g.e.r."
Mr. Mole looked up.
"What?"
"A wooden-legged n.i.g.g.e.r," said Sam Mason, touching his forelock respectfully at Mole. "No offence, your honour, to your legs."
"Oh, no."
"Go on, Sam," said young Jack, laughing; "out with Billy Longbow"s yarn."
"This n.i.g.g.e.r was stumping along the banks of the Nile one day, when who should he meet but a blessed big crockydile about a hundred feet long,"
"Oh!"
"Draw it mild, Sam."
"Well, that"s what Billy Longbow said--a hundred feet long."
"Oh, damme!" cried Joe Basalt, "make it ninety-nine, Sam, for decency sake."
"I won"t give in half a foot," persisted Sam. "Well, when s...o...b..ll sees Muster Crockydile so near as there was no getting out of the way, he says--"You jist wait a bit, Ma.s.sa Crock, I"ll gib yar suffin to sniff at." An" so, without more ado, he unscrews one of his wooden legs, and walks into the animal"s jaws."
"Oh, oh, oh!"
A general groan of incredulity.
"Absurd," said Mr. Mole, without looking up from his task of watching, in case the shark should again show itself.
"A fact, sir," said Sam Mason. "Well, he holds up his wooden leg perpendicular and the greedy crock comes on with a snap, but the wooden leg was a trifle more than he could get over; there it stuck and propped his great ugly maws wide open; out crawls s...o...b..ll, a kind of sorter modern Jonah, none the worse for it."
"Bravo, Sam!"
"Ho! it is quite true, for it"s Billy Longbow"s version of it," said the modest Sam.
"And is that all?"
"Not quite. He squatted down upon his stump, and prodded the crock in the eye with the other wooden leg until he caved in."
"Oh, oh, oh! Sam, Sam!" they cried in a chorus.