Australian Search Party | Page 7

island at which stood the Sail Rock. The tide had now risen considerably, and the water between the rock and ourselves was over four feet deep, and increasing in depth each moment. We saw poor Wordsworth clinging on to the slippery wall, as high up as the smooth mass afforded hand-hold.
"Come along, old fellow!" we shouted; "it's not up to your neck yet."
"He turned his head over his shoulder -- even at the distance we were, its pallor was quite visible -- and slowly and cautiously releasing one hand, he pointed to the water between himself and the island.
"By Jove!" cried the pilot, "he's bailed up by a shark, look at his sprit-sail!" and following his finger we saw an enormous black fin sailing gently to and fro, as regularly and methodically as a veteran sentry paces the limits of his post.
"Stick tight, old man! we'll bring the boat," and leaving the pilot to keep up a fusillade at the monster with the carbines, we darted back. I shall never forget the efforts we made to launch the boat, but she was immovable, and every moment the tide was rising, the little ripples expending themselves in bubbly foam against the thirsty sand. We strained, we tugged, we prised with levers, but unavailingly, the boat seemed as if she had taken root there and would not budge an inch. A happy thought struck me all of a sudden, as a reminiscence of a similar case that I had seen in years gone by came back in full vigour.
"Give me a tomahawk," I said.
One was produced in a minute from under the stern-sheets. Meanwhile I had got out a couple of the oars.
"Now, Jim, you're the best axeman, off with them here!"
Half a dozen strokes to each, and the blades were severed from the looms.
"Now boys, lay aft and lift her stern."
It was done, and one of the oars placed under as a roller.
"Now, launch together."
"Heave with a will."
"She's moving!"
"Again so. Keep her going."
"Hurrah!" and a loud cheer broke forth, as, through the medium of the friendly rollers, the heavy boat trundled into the water.
The pull was long, at least it seemed to us long, for we had to round the sandy spit before we could head towards the rock, and nearly got on shore in trying to make too close a shave. We could hear the crack of the pilot's carbine every few minutes, borne down to us by the freshening breeze, and the agonising "coo-ehs" of poor Wordsworth, whose ankles were already hidden by the advancing waters; added to this, we had only two oars, and the wind, now pretty strong, was dead in our teeth. I was steering, and Jim was standing up in the bows with his carbine for a shot, if the shark offered such an opportunity. As we neared the rock we could distinctly see the black fin within six feet of the narrow ledge on which the poor fellow was standing, and only when we approached to within a couple of boats' lengths, did the ferocious brute sail sullenly out to sea, pursued by a harmless bullet from Jim's rifle. Poor Wordsworth dropped into the boat fainting from terror, exhaustion, and loss of blood, for, although he was unconscious of it all the time, in his convulsive grip, the sharp oyster-shells had cut his hands to the very bone. A good glass of grog and some hot tea -- the bushman's infallible remedy -- soon brought him round, but the scars on his hands and knees will accompany him to his grave. He afterwards described the glances that the shark threw at him as perfectly diabolical, and confessed that he it not been for the cheery hails of the pilot, he should most certainly have relinquished his hold, and met with a death too horrible to contemplate.
It was now about three o'clock in the afternoon, and the boat being launched, we resolved to reach Gould Island before dark. The tent was soon struck, the provisions stowed away, the priming of the carbines looked to afresh, and in a few minutes we were sweeping across the small belt of water that separated the two islands. We approached the shore with caution, for, as I mentioned before, the sides of Gould Island are everywhere very steep, and hostile blacks, by simply dislodging some of the loose masses of rock, could easily have smashed the boat and its crew to pieces without exposing themselves to the slightest danger. Noiselessly, and with every faculty painfully alert, we closed the land, sprang on to the rocks, and at once set about the tedious task of breasting the hill. Hill climbing, under the vertical sun of North Australia, is by no means an enjoyable undertaking, more particularly when the loose shale