Voyage of the Destroyer from New York to Brazil | Page 7

he called "pumping." "If this shark were only Mello!" I thought. This feat led, naturally, to a rehearsal of exploits at the Soudan, which we had not heard of before. Oh, no; It was the "Bedouin scouts that came for us one morning, swinging in on their tall war camels, and I just took aim with my rapid firing gun and pumped the riders out of their saddles, one, two, three, just like that, Sir." This, in fact, was told confidentially to me with a coolness to indicate that it was nothing to "pump" a man.
For the admonition of sailors and sea bathers, generally, I say, put no faith in the yarn about harmless sharks. They are always liable to be about coral reefs and around ships--and they are always hungry.
The shark about which I was telling; one of the largest that I ever saw, in the place, too, where even some natives declared there were none, came near making a dinner off one of our crew. Mr. Kuhn, one of the engineers, was in bathing. I had just advised him to come aboard: that if "John Shark" should chance to sample him sticking plaster would never make him whole again. But, "Oh, there is no sharks," he said, and the American Consul, who was aboard, said there were none in the bay. When up comes this monster, with a bound through the water, right before us; as much as to say, "What do you think of me then, if there are no sharks?" and he struck a bee line for Mr. Kuhn, who, fortunately, was near the ship. It was going to be a close shave, however. The shark, as he darted forward for his would-be victim, lashed the sea with his tail like a pleased tiger.
Then Mr. Brown, the cool engineer of the Santuit, snatching his rifle with haste, took aim, holding the range till the monster, rising to make a grand lunge and clean sweep, fired. The ball passing through the shark's head, decided the moment. The brute shot past his mark, with closed jaws and lay lifeless on the water, a target, as I said, for the gunner's mate, who "pumped" the carcass so full of lead that it sank before it could be secured--any way it went down.
Mr. Kuhn proved himself to be a pretty fast swimmer, when he finally concluded to take my advice and come aboard, and being reminded of it by a twenty foot shark close upon his heels. Being an athletic young man, it didn't take him long to get in over the side, without the aid even of a step-ladder.
Mr. Kuhn, I may say in a word, landed on deck like a flying-fish in a gale of wind, and not a moment too soon. It was a day for sharks. Three more of the same species as the one just slain, not less, I should say, than 18 feet long each, now appeared not far from the vessel. They were apparently fighting over a greasy board some ten inches broad by four or five feet long, which had been thrown over from the galley. Pretty soon the board disappeared and didn't show up again. A butter firkin was then thrown over. It drifted about 100 yards away, when it was seized in the huge open jaws of a hungry white shark and went the way of the board. Never a splinter of either came again to the surface of the water.
Whether the board was swallowed whole, or first sawed or ground into smaller lumber, nobody knows. It is only fair to state, however, that it was a soft pine board. The firkin is no matter. The likes of that, or a deck-bucket or two, it is well known, is mere dessert to a shark, if he is a big one.
There was no need of further cautioning the crew to keep out of the water. After the above occurrence one could hardly persuade the cook, otherwise a brave man, to draw a bucket of it over the side; and some of the older hands, never yet daunted by even sea-serpent or whale, abstained from water now more than ever before. The monsters, I confess, gave us all a turn.
Jan. 18th the Destroyer arrived at Fernando de Noronha where all hands were busied, for the day, taking in coals and water again from the Santuit. A very heavy surf on prevented all communication with the shore except by signals and afterwards by dispatches that were brought to us out through the breakers by convicts of the place, in one-man canoes which they skillfully managed. The occupants having no wish, apparently, to end the term of their conviction, which they told us ranged yet ten years ahead of them. Ten years of their